Movie Sunday/Sundae

So, yesterday, I decided I was going to watch a few movies that I'd been planning on watching but for whatever reason had been putting off, on what I have christened Movie Sunday/Sundae. Here's my thoughts on them:

[REC]2

I loved the first [REC]. When I saw it for the first time almost 2 years ago, it was probably the scariest movie I’d seen for a long time. My dad will probably agree with me. I bought the sequel the day it came out.

And while it doesn’t reach the heights of the first, it’s still a solid entry into what I hope will become a strong franchise ([REC]’s 3 and 4 have already been greenlit). The story picks up minutes after the first ended as we follow a group of heavily armed soldiers entering the building to find out what’s the hell is going on. Cleverly, instead of following one camera for the whole movie, each of the soldiers has a little headcam so we get lots of different viewpoints throughout the film, whether it’s following a soldier as he crawls through a vent (terrifying, by the way) or watching the other soldiers patch in to a missing soldier’s headcam to find out where he is.

However, it does add some story elements that, while expanding the universe, make it a little less believable. In the first, everything just seemed so random, shit-hitting-the-fan for no reason. In this the outbreak is explained away as almost a conspiracy; a conspiracy involving the Vatican(!). It loses some of the realness that the first had. And the whole night vision revelation is a little too far fetched for my liking.

However, it’s still scary and it’s still awesome, with a killer/disgusting last scene that makes me hungry for the next installment.

4 stars


Catfish

If you’ve seen the trailer for this, you’re probably expecting an unsuspecting man to become friends with a girl on Facebook, who then flies out to meet her only to discover she, and her family, are a bunch of serial killers or something.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Well, actually it is mostly true. Apart from the serial killer part. A young photographer (Nev) meets a little 8 year old girl on Facebook after she has been sending him her paintings of some of his photos , and begins corresponding with the girl herself, her mother and her attractive sister (see below). As time goes on, an almost romance blossoms between Nev and the sister, entirely via Facebook, telephone, text and email. When Nev discovers some discrepancies in what his online ‘girlfriend’ has been telling him, he flies out to meet her. And that’s when things get really interesting.

I’ll not say anything more so as not to gave the game away, but this documentary is a great insight into the power (and perils) of the internet, and one that will have you constantly changing your mind about the people involved right up until the end.

4 stars


Attack the Block

The directorial debut of Joe Cornish (of Adam and Joe fame) set in a council tower block which comes under attack from aliens was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were a few things I liked about it, but at the same time there were a lot of things that brought it down.

Firstly the good. I loved loved loved the design of the aliens; just pure black with rows of luminous teeth. An inspired design, and while never out and out scary they make a lasting impression, like a furrier version of the xenomorph, all teeth and no eyes.

However I could not enjoy the film wholly, due to the fact that the main characters are such scumbags for most of the running time. When you introduce your characters by showing them mugging a woman you have to do a hell of a lot throughout the movie to make them seem like redeemable characters. The leader of the gang, Moses, while having somewhat of a redemptive arc during the movie didn’t really have enough of one to convince me that this guy is the hero, and that I should be rooting for him.

Reviewers have noted that the film has some scathing social commentary within it. Well sorry, but when the only social commentary is “some hoodies are just products of their environment and not really that bad” it’s not enough for me. Especially when at the end, it doesn’t seem as though Moses has changed any. Just that he saved the day after feeling guilty for causing some of the deaths of his friends; if anything, to me, the film suggests that he’ll not change at all with the residents of the block (who didn’t all know about the aliens) basically cheering him on for blowing up his flat and for being arrested by the police.

I also didn’t think the film was as funny or as scary as it was advertised as being. I can forgive it for not being funny, as that seemed like the marketing people advertised it as such, not really a fault of the film. But it wasn’t scary either which I believe was to be the point of it.

So overall, it’s a technically accomplished film with fine performances, but ultimately for me kind of a hollow experience, blud.

2 stars

Anyway, I hope to do another Sundae next week.

Bye, JC.