Saturday, May 28, 2016

The Shining

No lie, this movie creeps me out.


What a wonderful adaptation of a novel. A horror novel at that, it's been done before yes and many times with Stephen King novels (although Stephen King hated this adaptation and went on to do his own rubbish miniseries.) but this one was done damn well. Major props to Stanley Kubrick, who already makes creepy and uncomfortable movies and now makes it 1000 times worse. The plot follows Jack Nicholson who plays a character named Jack (It's common.) and his wife and son played by Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd, who are tasked with caretaking a hotel during the winter. Not very long after that, mysterious and downright terrifying things start to happen as Jack slowly starts to lose his grip on reality. Gee, a Jack Nicholson movie where he goes crazy. Never seen that before. Honestly, I joke because his descent into madness is quite possibly the most unnerving thing I have ever witnessed. It is both scary and kinda funny when he loses his mind but the one single, solitary scene I remember most is literally a long take of a close-up of his face staring outside a window with this fraking creepy ass background noise going on. Just...ugh friggin' scary! Playing opposite side of him, Shelley Duvall has the most realistic and genuine reactions to all the bizarre stuff going on around her. It's a great performance that wasn't entirely all just acting. Stanley Kubrick himself targeted Shelley Duvall and made the shoot very difficult for her, causing her almost to have a nervous breakdown and it really does show on film! You have this real feeling of a woman who is going through hell and the insurmountable amounts of isolation and paranoia that she is experiencing! I really almost don't want to call it acting, since her performance mirrored her real life experiences on the set. When you hear people say this is a scary if not terrifying film, they are not exaggerating! The film has an almost surreal atmosphere to it, and that's the core element of the story is the atmosphere. You get the sense of isolation, and paranoia, and terror that these characters experience. I heard about the reputation of this film for awhile before I finally sat down and watched it, and really I couldn't disagree much. The movie got to me, not to the point of other horror films like The Strangers or It Follows but it stuck to my subconscious and that's the worst thing a horror movie could do to you. When a horror film gets stuck in your subconscious, it constantly rattles around in your brain, like an almost over-arching entity or presence that continues to haunt you. Most people see horror films because they enjoy to be scared, they love the rush of adrenaline, but some of them have lingering effects that you can't exactly get out of your head. The Shining did that to me! Not many horror films have that achievement, but the ones that do are the movies that truly stick with us. The movies that pop into our head when we are alone, or in the dark. And that is the most terrifying thing of all, nothing is more scarier or horrifying than our own imaginations. Until next time viewers, unpleasant dreams....

Thursday, May 26, 2016

A Clockwork Orange

I really do consider this film art. It is beautifully made, and I love it.

A Clockwork Orange is a brilliant film starring Malcolm McDowell who plays a psychotic criminal, lusting after sex and violence while having a passion for classical music and his subsequent evolution and even de-evolution. The best part of the entire film, besides the set design and the music is Malcolm McDowell's performance. In fact, that's really what the story is carried upon is his performance, and of course it's perfect. It's Malcolm McDowell, you can't get much better then that. Even in horrible movies, he does his damndest and it shows. But this is my absolute favorite performance of his, he is both charming and alarming, sophisticated but brutal. It is quite remarkable. The set design is very interesting, you remember most if not all of the sets. The music is perfect, with original compositions mixed with synthesizer renditions of such pieces like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and William Tell's Overture and it is excellent! I listen to it on a regular basis! I highly, highly recommend this wonderful film. Yes, it is dark and psychotic but still a great film nevertheless. Viddy it on the screen, and tell me what you think. Tune in on Saturday for one final Kubrick film before the week is out.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

2001: A Space Odyssey

More of a experience than a film, with other's trying to duplicate the tone with little success.

This is not an easy film to talk about because when I try to recount it all I sound like I am on drugs. The film is about....I have no idea. There's hundreds if not thousands of interpretations of this movie and it's themes. This movie is the most ambiguous film in human history. It is not like Watchmen where the ending is ambiguous, the whole damn movie is riddled with ambigooey! And it's split up into parts, very much like the novel which it was based on, starting off when humans weren't even humans they were apes living in Africa until one day the apes discover an ominous monolith which somehow slowly starts the evolution process. The apes start utilizing bones as weapons and then...a very strange transition happens that pretty much goes like this: ape kills ape, ape rejoices, ape throws bone into the air, cut to a spaceship in orbit of Earth. And then we meet with an expedition team going to the moon where they discover another mysterious monolith that they excavated below the moon's surface. Followed by more astronauts travelling to Jupiter for some science reason or another. Honestly I forgot, I think it had something to do with a transmission signal but don't quote me on that. Then we meet the infamous HAL 9000, which is easily the best part of the movie. I mean you want to talk about scary movie villains, HAL is up there! The film is so minimalistic, and fascinating to watch. It's done in the staple Stanley Kubrick style with long shots, great use of music, uncomfortable atmosphere, and ambiguous endings. I would not recommend this to be your first Stanley Kubrick movie, like maybe your fifth but not your first. You have to be in a very special kind of mood to experience 2001: A Space Odyssey. And the ending can be summed up in one word, SYMBOLISM!!! Tune in Thursday where we look at another classic Stanley Kubrick film.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Mindsets And Memories

The mindset I really think about when I watch shows like Scooby-Doo is you know, there's weird things going on and kids or teenagers go to places they shouldn't go and try to unravel this mystery going on around them. Sort of rebellious teens who do things for the good of themselves, and their families, and their community. My entire life I have watched things with more intellectual mindsets than physical. Most of the shows I watched when I was little were detective stories pretty much. Scooby-Doo where teenagers use their minds and deduction skills to solve mysteries. Batman The Animated Series, you know The World's Greatest Detective solving crimes and fighting villains. It was always characters using their minds over their muscles to solve problems. And it obviously influenced me, it made me use my brain more, basically made me an intellectual at the age of 5. Reading several grades ahead of me, finishing entire school days of work until I had nothing to do, solving puzzles every week were common to me. I lived in the school library for about 6 years, if I didn't have work to do I was reading books. That was the effect these sort of crime/mystery/detective shows had on me. But...I get that kind of mindset from more than just Scooby-Doo. Like, the most prominent example is kids who go to school after dark kinda like in Goosebumps books where kids notice strange things and try to solve it usually under the cover of nightfall. I loved that kind of stuff when I was little, the mystique of it all. The night was much more interesting and fun rather than the day, like so much more fun and cool stuff happened at night not during the day. I wanted to solve mysteries as a kid, travel into the night and do something I shouldn't be doing, that's the stuff I lived for when I was a kid. I was and still am an explorer especially on star filled nights.

Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated

Yeah, another tv review and an animated one at that! This is easily top 5 when it comes to animated shows.

Scooby-Doo was the first cartoon I ever saw in my life, I still have all my old tapes, I've seen every single show, every movie, and it never gets old for me. But this show, which is not the newest but it just takes every single element of the original show and makes it a thousand times better than it was. The characters, the mysteries, there's an arching storyline in both seasons and that's the only bad thing is it was only two seasons long which is criminal because of how great it is! The first time I watched it I was late (like I am with many shows) about a few episodes into the first season, and it didn't take long for me to realize, holy smokes this show is different! Look, there's character development! There's this creepy overarching storyline, that's new! Damn this show is really funny, and weird, and awesome! I can't wait to see more! That was pretty much my first reaction to the show. I hunted down the first season, watched it from the beginning, loved every episode, and it just kept getting better. It's very hard to describe, it's a great show with nods to all the old shows and movies, but when you keep delving deeper and deeper into it you find new fascinating stuff. Dang it, the more I think about it the more I want to talk about. So more than likely there will be a follow up to this review later today. The best thing this show has going for it is the character development, these are characters with history together, with funny little quirks about them, and the fact that they are teenagers who date! That is a prominent feature in this series is the fact that the gang has relationships. Fred and Daphne date and it's hilarious to no end, Velma and Shaggy have a relationship and I'm just geeking the hell out over it! This is a show for the fans. I mean really and truly. Maybe that's why I love it so much, it is a great show by itself but then you add little tidbits of the mythos of the whole franchise and you get something even better. I cannot recommend this series enough if you are a fan of Scooby-Doo or just appreciate good animated shows. I'm gonna write more about the mindset I have and just various things that come to mind when I think of shows like this. So stick around, and in the meantime have fun unravelling the mystery.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

This Literally CRAZY Movie Idea I Had

I'm not much of a film director obviously but I've had this idea for a short movie for a good long while since maybe early high school. The reason it's a short movie idea instead of feature length is I know I'm not that talented to make a movie that long. So it would be a short film, and it's a rather novel idea. I don't think I have ever heard or seen any film or movie that has a plot like this, and I'm going to tell you it just for laughs and to sort of do more creative writing. I'm liking these I guess you could call them editorials or something, what's a good name for these things? I don't know. But the plot pretty much goes like this, boy meets girl and they meet through friends of theirs and they hit it off pretty well, they form this very genuine and very loving relationship. Pretty damn standard so far, but you see what they do in their off time and it turns out they are both psychotic killers! They are serial killers, and neither of them know that the other is a psychopath who murders people! You see? You don't see that like ever! And one night they both decide to kill one of their mutual friends, so the girl goes to a movie with the guy and she goes over to his house and meanwhile, the boyfriend is coming over to his house with a movie or something, and he walks in to see his girlfriend stabbing the fraking crap out of this guy and the boyfriend is freaking out and it slips out of his mouth, "What are you doing?!? I was going to kill him!!" and then...they both look up, the girlfriend and the guy who is dying in absolute utter confusion at the boyfriend. A little bit of dark comedy before the boyfriend runs to her, grabs the knife, slits his throat and kills him. And they sit on the couch and they have a very meaningful, true heart to heart discussion about them both being homicidal maniacs. And they legitimately question if they can continue being in a relationship, but eventually they hug each other and share a sweet kiss. Hooray! And the girl looks down and she notices the movie or whatever, and she says, "You like this movie?" and the boyfriend says yeah and then she says, "This is one of my favorite movies of all time!" and the boyfriend's like "Really? Me too! It's awesome!" and then they watch the movie snuggled up on the couch. So after they watch the  movie, they dump the body of their friend in the middle of the night in a dumpster in an alley, and they walk down the alley together hand in hand. The end. If I was ever going to make one movie, this would be it. I love that idea! So you can kinda see why the movie would be a short film, I would probably make the movie maybe an hour or less, that seems the right amount of time to cover everything I just described. I would make the movie practically with no budget, but I would make it to where you love seeing these crazy people in a relationship. You would genuinely care about them. I have seen enough good movies and bad movies, and romance movies to get that right. And that would be the most important element of the story to me is the relationship. This is a very easy film to make, I would need a handful of locations all of which will be local, I would need maybe like 5 or 6 actors total, adequate sound equipment and an editor since I couldn't edit to save my life, I have a video camera I could use, I would need to flesh out the script, and I would need to pick the perfect actors for the couple. That's really easy, high school students make films of that caliber in film class. It's probably a pot dream that won't come to fruition, but maybe one day I would like to make it. Probably before I'm 25. So I got a bit of time to work on it. And the whole film would probably take about a month or two to be finished. I have no idea what I would call it, Mad Love is a great title but it's been used a lot but I'm a sucker for that so it could work or maybe...Crazy Bloody Love. Oh my God that's so cheesy and ridiculous, that would elevate it to a cult film. Oh dear, what am I going to do with myself? I actually want to call it that now cause it sounds like the worst movie title ever but if I do the film right people will love it, and in a generation where word spreads quicker than wildfire it could get a lot of attention. And I wouldn't do this movie for any other reason except the fact that I would love to do it. Nothing else, just solely because I would love to see it be real. It's a no budget dream now, but one day...maybe. One day.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Evolutionary Viewing Of The Internet Critic Part II

And here we are again, reminiscing about days gone by and what made me start this show. A few days ago, I was seriously just going on a long walk down memory lane, and I started remembering more stuff about what I used to watch, specifically on YouTube. They weren't always reviews but just ordinary people making these little videos that they loved to do and I loved watching them. Many of them were just let's players which is a subgenre of online videos specifically to film in real time a playthrough of a video game, and I just loved hearing their commentary on it and seeing them play these games that I have never seen before and it was this new thing to me, now it's pretty standard. Hell, I remember going to the library in high school, sitting in these really comfy chairs and watching those kinds of videos during lunch. I love seeing new video games and just hear people have a good time playing them! I also had a huge revelation that I actually forgot to add in the last Evolutionary Viewing Of The Internet Critic ( Or EVOTIC for short. Sounds like a mix between erotic and evocative. Eww.) and it was that on channelawesome.com they had these specials every year commemorating their anniversary, and this is where I witnessed just how massive the scale was when it came to all the reviewers on that site. That's really how they were introduced to me! If they looked interesting, I watched them. But you didn't have to be a fan of every single one of them to enjoy the specials, but if you watch enough of them you get their sense of humor which thus makes the specials more entertaining. They still do them, but they made feature length films of this stuff. Like okay, the very first one was like a 30 minute brawl between the film critics and the video game critics, it was brother against brother, civil war amongst the critics! Then they started making these, pretty much feature films with run times going over 2 hours everytime, with each one getting longer and longer culminating in over a 4 HOUR movie that was the big finale to all the films. And after that, they stated the specials would stay on a more independent style with shorter run times and less of a grand epic scale to it all. And they are pretty damn good, I'd check them out if you are interested. I think they have a list of them on the site but just to save you some time they are called, The 1st Anniversary TGWTG Brawl, Kickassia, Suburban Knights, and To Boldly Flee. But uh...back to our show. Christ that was a long tangent. But anyway, that was part of the reason why I am here today and the really sad part is, some of my friends from way back when....they're not on there anymore. Several of them completely took their channels down while others just sadly aren't making videos anymore. It's very depressing because, they gave me such joy and interest and made me want to do what they did. And I just miss them. It was fun, and I made good friends who I still haven't forgot about. And I pray that they come back one day, because they always have a fan and a friend when it comes to me. Confession time now, way back in I'd say maybe 2008 I wanted to make a video. I wanted to make a music video tribute to Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight. This was a little bit before the movie came out, and I took various still images and video clips from his performance and tried to edit them all together set to Puddle Of Mudd's Psycho. It was a good idea at the time. But son of a nutcracker I could not for the life of me get the music onto the already edited video I made, and how I made it I have no idea. That was luck! That was going to be my first video on my YouTube channel which I made a little bit before that idea popped into my head. I cannot edit worth a damn, I have no idea how these guys do it and I applaud them. If I was going to make videos...Christ it would be uncut, uncensored, just one long take with no cuts or any sort of editing. Just turn the camera on, have at it, and then switch it off at the end and then upload it. So if like something fell, or if someone came in the room there would be nothing I could do about it. I sure as hell ain't starting all over again, so I guess you would be witness to the madness. Oh, and you know that would be the most rambling, rage induced rant you would ever see in your life. It sounds fun actually! I might attempt that one day, maybe even commit my reviews to video cause somethings get lost in translation ( Ha ha.) so maybe reading it would make the reviews much better. Alright I think I'm done with this. Another day, another rant. Thank you so much for reading, goodnight everybody!

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Lucy

Grinning like the Joker folks. Grinning like a madman.

Yes...oh yes! Hello beautiful, amaze me like you always do. This movie is quite possibly the most fascinating and amazing example of film ever produced. It is the most difficult film to explain, becauses it gets so intuitive it actually almost seems to pass eternity, round back and become something new again and again. But to put it in basic terms, Lucy is a victim of circumstance being roped into a drop off with a crime boss which causes her to have drug pouches placed into her abdomen. Whilst enduring some physical trauma the drug leaks into her system and that's where things start getting very interesting. The film is only an hour and a half long but at just about the 30 minute mark, the real game begins. Lucy slowly over the course of 24 hours is able to use 100% of her brain capacity and that results in her being able to do everything, and I do mean everything! You know what happens? She becomes Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, an omnipotent being able to manipulate anything and everything. And the film is very visual in it's storytellimg and has a sheer genius script that gives an honest, believable explanation as to why we do not use our full 100% capacity of our brain, because it makes us more machine than human. Emotions are slowly dying whilst intelligence continues to grow. There is no way in hell that I can ever do this movie justice by just talking about it. This is a necessary, fundamental film to see. I cannot dream of how far this film delves into pretty much the basic essence of everything. When I say watch this movie, I mean really watch this movie. Prepare to be enlightened.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The Jungle Book (2016)

Guys this movie was good. I mean like, really dang good!


The Jungle Book, beloved animated classic with an all new interesting twist. And it is awesome! Where do I start? The casting is exquisite, everybody especially Neel Sethi in his breakthrough performance is something truly special. I mean, who are you going to pick over Bill Murray to play Baloo? I dare you no wait, I friggin' double dog dare you to pick someone better! Ben Kingsley was a great Bagheera, Idris Elba of Luther fame is a very malicious and very threatning Shere Khan. Scarlett Johansson....mmm! Giant snake or not, I'm in love. Just pure sensual yumness from a snake! Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first movie Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson have been in together since the most perfect movie ever made. Whoa. And they actually share a scene together (Hooray!) but sadly they fight (Boooo!) but the principle still stands. Oh yeah, and Christopher Walken! Isn't this exhilarating? But there is more to talk about than the cast! The special effects are outstanding, I had a very difficult time to discern what was real and what was computer graphics. That is a new standard of special effects! Most of the original songs are in this film specifically, The Bear Necessities, Trust In Me, and I Wanna Be Like You, all of which done superbly. The mythos surrounding the jungle is rather clever, to be more precise all animals of the jungle herald the elephants as gods. No joke, they state that they created the jungle and all within it. Which is clever because elephants are heralded as religious symbols in India which you can tell is where the story takes place. Speaking of which, the plot follows the animated film but not carbon copy close. The variations in this version are great, and by no means take away from the film. Oh yeah and there was this really funny easter egg when you meet King Louie, I want to see if you can spot it! But anyway, this film was pretty great, not sure which you will prefer more but I enjoyed the film and I really hope you do too. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to Trust In Me again. Ohhh yes!

Friday, May 6, 2016

School Is Almost Done

That's the good news. Bad news is finals are next week, hence the serious lack of reviews this week. But after that, I'm free to start reviewing more often. And that makes me happy! So I'm sorry I kinda left you hanging this week but I promise to get back into it next week. Wish me luck on those finals!