At this writing this little blog of ours is sitting at 235 views, so I figured I'd do an entry to push us past 250. So if you're reading this, thank you for caring about us and what we write, if you aren't reading this, you must be a wizard, on to the review...
Rabbit Hole tells the story of a young couple whose lives start unravelling after they lose their 4 year old son Danny. In the film Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play the aforementioned couple in this gripping drama about life, death and how to deal with both, based upon the Pulitzer winning play of the same name.
The film begins with the couple mourning the death of their 4 year old son who was killed after being struck by a car driven by a teenager after running out into traffic chasing after his dog. Each parent takes a very different stance when it comes to mourning however which leads to troubles in their relationship, not only with others, but with each other.
Eckhart's character chooses to hold on to the memory of their son by keeping old clothes and belongings of him, as well as his room the exact same way it was, all the while trying to get his wife to agree to trying for another child.
Kidman's character on the ther hand is not so submissive with the suggestions of her husband, especially the notion of having sex. She also wants to get rid of all her son's clothes, and gets presented with the perfect opportunity to do so that when she discovers her younger sister Izzy is expecting her first child. Her family tells Kidman that it's innapropriate and Izzy even let's her sister know that if she has a boy she doesn't want to see him running around in Danny's old clothes because it'll bring back too many painful memories.
The couple also start going to a group for parents that have lost their children, Kidman resents everything about it whereas Eckhart finds it helpful. After a while Kidman decides to stop going leaving Eckhart flying solo where instead of going to the group he starts hanging out with a friend from group (played by Sandra Oh) acting childish together whether it's going to the arcade or smoking pot in the car. Kidman however isn't acting much better however as she starts meeting secretly with the driver of the car that struck her son and flipping out on her mother for comparing her loss to that of her mother when she lost her then 30 year old son.
This movie was all I could have hoped for and more. I expected a story that wouldn't be all that spectacular with great acting considering all the press Kidman got and given Eckhart's terrific track record. The acting did not dissapoint as the dialogue between the characters was always fiery and passionate which made it a pleasure to see. The story was the surprise as I expected a more downer story given the plot but some of the scenes were rather pleasent especially the ones revolving around Nicole Kidman and the comic book "Rabbit Hole"
I would highly recommend this movie to be watched. It can be seen at anytime, movie night with your family (providing the family is all 13+), date night or relaxing alone on a sunday night at home. The acting was as advertised with the story keeping you entertained enough to bridge the gaps between the scenes of beauty mined from self-depressive behaviour from the two leads just trying to move on from tragedy without forgetting their pain of the life they can't leave behind.
Once again I realize I've been slacking off with the reviews but to my credit, I've actually watched movies during this time. I just haven't been able to get to a computer to write about them... As evidence by my 15 unread e-mails stemming from Friday I haven't had time for and deemed unimportant. So before I e-mail complaints, and financial departments on with a review...
It's almost Halloween! And you know what that means!?! My yearly movie that I deem to be my "Halloween movie". Now to be my Halloween movie it doesn't have to be a horror movie or really even scary, it just has to have some sort of element that seems Halloween-ish, it can be zombies, kids trick-or-treating or a crazy alien that devours you and then replicates your cells. Enter The Thing.
The Thing, is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 classic that goes by the same title. Which itself is a remake of a 1951 film entitled "The Thing From Another World" often referred to, however, as "The Thing".
This prequel centers in on the alien specimen before it gets to Kurt Russell, hence the tagline "It's not human. Yet." Aside from being grammatically incorrect, it's about all you need to know about this film. It takes place during winter 1982 at a scientific research station in Antartica. After a group of Norwegian scientists discover an alien creature and what appears to be a ship deep in the bowels of the Antartic ice. After the discovery they contact Dr. Sander Halverson a so-called "expert" who travels to Antartica to see the discovery but not before his research assistant Adam Goodman, invites a friend, Dr. Kate Lloyd, an american paleontologist invited to help identify the possible alien specimen.
Upon arrival they discover the creature frozen in a block of ice that they elect to remove from the ice as they assume it had died 100,000 years ago when it's believed the alien aircraft originally crashed on earth. So after cutting the ice around it they transport the block of ice back and place it in the research station where Dr. Halverson decides to take a tissue sample from the creature much to the shagrin of Dr. Kate Lloyd and we see the first real friction between the characters. After a couple of hours of thawing the creature busts out of the ice and he does so with a vengeance, where he begins to pick off and copy the research station residents. Will it ever be stopped?
Now "The Thing" is classified as a horror film, although it's not your usual slash-and-gore kind of horror that you generally see in Hollywood's makeover of classic horror films no matter where they fall on the R.P.S. scale (Remake, Prequel, Sequel) as it generally erred more so to the Thriller side, perhaps by fiscal constraints considering it's relatively small 38 million budget, for comparisons sake the recently released Dream House, a horror movie that takes place almost entirely in one space had a 50 million dollar budget. So 38 isn't a whole lot to go around for slash and gore when you need to make an alien aircraft, and all those ice vehicles and helicopters they used.
They spent next to no time on character development outside of Dr. Lloyd, with the other characters, you had just enough information on them to either feel bad when they died, feel good that they did die or loved watching them handle those flamethrowers. It's espescially hard to make a horror movie nowadays in a frigid climate considering we're so used to seeing half naked girls getting killed mid-orgasm that it's odd not to see, but in this film it's good that you don't because that just wouldn't work in Antartica. So kudos to the director for not slutting up the characters, including my future wife Ramona Flowers (Still the best movie of 2010 FYI). The visuals were passable at best, probably a mistake for not filming in digital when there's so much CGI in the film to make it look more even, however when no CGI was on the screen it was absolutely stunning as I have long been a fan of movies filmed with a good ol' 35MM, and thus made the mountainous scenes all that much more better.
Overall, this movie isn't spectacular, in fact it's barely even memorable. But it's a lot of fun to watch about once every year or so (maybe even on Halloween) and if you're a fan of the recent R.P.S.'s then you should be more than happy with this film, regardless of critics thinking every classic shouldn't be touched with a 20 foot pole.
Welcome to the beautiful Banoi Island Resort, grab a drink and head on over to the beach or grab some friends and take a canoe trip down one of our picturesque jungle rivers. We’re glad you chose us please help yourself to a complimentary zombie... or an island full.
First off lets an objective look at the characters. There are four playable characters and more NPC’s than you can fit in a meat grinder. Before you get your hopes up I meant it when I said there are only four playable characters, just four, no customization regarding name, facial features, classes, gender, anything, in fact all you get to choose is where you place skill points when you level up. It seemed they also cut some corners with the NPC’s, all they had the time to edit it seems is the facial features, remember Oblivion where even the old ladies had the body of a twenty year old model? You’ll get a lot of that here. There are a couple NPC's that they spend a little more render time on, most importantly the leaders of the survivor groups, one of which saved you in the prologue and a survivor who will later follow you through the game acting as a portable storage unit. The backstories for your characters are pretty bleak and useless as they are nothing more than a two minute narrated sob story, and create next to no connection with the player and influence barely anything in the game. While we’re on characters lets take a little more in depth look, theres the blunt weapon specialist; who just happens to be black and a failing freestyle rapper, the ranged damage dealer; who happens to be an ex cop with a daddy complex, the throwing weapon specialist; a white football player who can’t hold his liquor; and last but certainly least is the sharp weapon specialist an undercover Asian investigator , anyone want sushi with your racial stereotypes?
So if you read that you now know there are roughly three types of weapons, blunt, sharp, and ranged. Blunt weapons are the easiest to find and in fact your first weapon is a great example, a wooden paddle (thank you sir may I have another?), I would say that blunt weapons are the easiest to find as every broomstick and piece of wood flooring you feel like ripping out of a zombie classifies as blunt. Its what I call the Dead Island complex: the state of mind where you think that anything heavier than a dust pan is a weapon. Sharp weapons range from the lowly kitchen knife to the high horse katana that will elude your inventory for the majority of the game. Ranged weapons encompass every weapon, as you can throw everything you find at a zombie, but along the way there are a few specialized types. Grenades play a prominent role as nearly every survivor shanty you stumble upon has a pyro waiting to make molotovs, actual grenades will appear later in the game and cause all kinds of explosive fun. If you’re lucky you’ll find a gun early in the story line, if not then wait till act two and three consecutively and you’ll have your pick of pistols, assault rifles, and shotguns, but be wary ammunition is priceless and more often than not you’ll find your magazines dry and become a brain buffet. One thing I was definitely a fan of was the modding, every now and then you’ll be rewarded with a weapon mod blueprint and from there you skip over to a repair table and strap some random (so it seems) items onto your weapons for various effects. Effects range from additional force to an elemental chance ranging from electric to toxic and incendiary.
The combat in this game can make or break the experience, I mean sure the graphics are pretty and you may find you have multiple zombie hotties following you around but when they forget your money and you have to show them who’s boss you need to be able to survive. There are two types of combat controls, digital and analog, digital being your standard FPS hack and slash and all that shiny stuff, analog is a more immersive style and requires you to violently swing your analog sticks until you smash your controller on the wall. So now we’ve gotten past my broken controller I can explain how I think the combat works. Every weapon has attributes that deal numerical damage to the enemies, taken as hit points and displayed onscreen, thats all fine and dandy but you still need to factor in weapon condition as the more you use the weapon it will degrade and eventually become useless. Any mods also factor into the math and weapons also have a “force” attribute, that basically means your sledgehammer is going to knock a zombie on its ass faster than your kitchen knife. Obviously thats not all I mean thats a weak equation to all us geeks, so weapons also have a critical chance and most enemies have a critical hit location that may or may not be easy to spot.
Tying into combat are the health and stamina systems and their various upgrades. Stamina is obviously how much you are fatigued by exercise such as sprinting and swinging a sledgehammer, every blow reduces your stamina bar which is only shown when being depleted. When your stamina bar is depleted you can no longer fight effectively, causing you to stop sprinting or stumble around, and when your stamina bar is completely gone zombies can also get in a few very effective cheap shots and send you flying. The health system is refreshingly old school, being a series of blocks arrayed at the top left of the screen portraying how much health your character retains. Health can be replenished by eating, drinking, and leveling up, although food choices are very sparse. Along the way you will find snack bars available in standard and extra format, fruit, and energy drinks, thats it, thats pretty much it in the way of interactive health products. I should also mention the "Fury" meter, essentially beat enough zombies and you can fly into a character specific rage. Whether it be a personal side arm, or an infinite stash of throwing knives, your fury will get you out of many a sticky situation.
The enemies are pretty basic for zombie games. Theres your standard Max Brook’s zombie, called a “walker”, that does just that, theres the fast plague zombies called “infected”, the “thug” or giant asshole as you will soon call him, the floater which might as well be a boomer from L4D, the “suicide” which is just a Dead Island version of a Creeper, the “Ram”, a slavering mental patient (pro tip: let him run past then head on in the back door), the “butcher” who has no hands so stabs you with the bones of his arms (pro tip: use an axe for added MLG score), and a guest appearance by the very much over used Jason Voorhees. The basic walker can be upgraded with weapons or a miasmic cloud of flies or for your gaming pleasure, set on fire; cause the only thing worse than a zombie is a flaming zombie. All enemies are introduced with a cut scene the first time you meet them and throughout the game you’ll acquire the ability to choose your path through the levels by what sounds you hear coming from certain paths. All enemies respond to you by your threat level and theres a strategy for all of them, most of which involve a machete enema or shoving a car down their throats, but do experiment.
Now that I’ve talked about everything out of order lets hit the plot. Essentially (based on what character you choose) you are sent to Banoi Island a beautiful resort, from there shit goes bad and you wake up in your bed to an emergency broadcast urging you to leave the hotel. Along the way you are guided by a man from the radio who (spoiler alert) eventually fucks you over and gets his ass beat, but I digress. From the first act you’ll be meeting and helping every bleeding heart survivor you should have fed to the horde, you’ll be collecting car parts and pharmaceuticals from the resort to the heart of the jungle and everyone has a weapon or new mod they will be willing to trade for services rendered. Long story short your merry band of immune survivors make it off the island via helicopter piloted by an “innocent” ex con. So military scandal and dead scientists aside the plot is simple but effective and still manages to provide a twist and turn hear or there.
Multiplayer is just the campaign with four players, theres no difference in number of enemies or plot and everything can be accomplished by one person, aside from fast travel and main quests you rarely have to be a group player.
Overall I was satisfied with the plot, the graphics are beautiful and I rarely encountered bugs until later in the game when I stumbled across enemies glitching into walls and had problems loading textures on start up. The combat can either be the most fun you’ve ever had while shoving a wrench into your girlfriends mouth or become the most frustrating thing you’ve ever attempted, it even says in the loading screen tips “some areas have a high threat level, it may be harder to play on your own”. One great thing that will make up for these bugs is the fact all the game data is stored on the disk, it even says on the case that it only needs 51mb of hard drive space which is uber small for such a huge and beautiful game, I recently picked up RAGE and right at the desk they warned me it would take an hour to install as it takes up 8gigs of hard drive space... So Dead Island, its a beautiful immersive world of zombies and other assorted a-holes, with a small number of glitches and racially styled characters, but its damn fun and with the chance to bring your weapons over to the next play through and start up from every chapter, its worth coming back but try it on your own before you get too attached to your brains....
*Just as an end note don't let my assorted pessimism and cynicism dissuade you from trying this game, I absolutely loved it and lost a lot of sleep from the insane amount of tension it builds, and in my defense its my job to find the bad in everything that is good. Let me also say this game did better than anyone thought it would, when I went to buy it three days after it was released I went to four different stores and they all told me it had sold out at least four times already, it makes me wish I had preordered it instead of Resistance 3, but I digress, get this game, get some friends and let the good times roll.
Next up on this movie review docket is 50/50 starring Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick in a coming of age tale about a young man struggling to deal with life after he finds out he developed cancer.
In 50/50 Joseph-Gordon Levitt plays a 27 year old, hardworking radio producer living in rural Seattle named Adam. Adam's life is turned upside down after he goes to the doctor complaining of back pain and leaves finding out he has cancer in his spine. As if Adam doesn't have enough enough on his plate he has to deal with an over-emotional mother (played by Anjelica Huston), a girlfriend who's cheating on him (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), a best friend who wants to use his cancer to get him laid (played by Seth Rogen), and a psychiatrist, who isn't even a real doctor and is younger than he is (played by Anna Kendrick).
SPOILER ALERT: Bring tissues to this movie.
The movie starts out with us seeing Adam's everyday life; he wakes up, hangs out with his girlfriend before meeting up with his best friend Kyle to go to work at a local Seattle radio station, where they both act as producers. After Adam gets diagnosed with cancer, his life begins to spiral out of control as we see him struggle with everyday things. And poor Adam, everytime he seems to begin to cope with one aspect of his cancer (or it's treatment), something happens that makes him rethink everything and you as the viewer can't help but feel for this 27 year old going to 4 hour chemo treatments and to leave the hospital just to find he has no ride, since his girlfriend stood him up and doesn't arrive until hours later.
Now although this movie seems like a tragedy, or a drama it's really quite lighthearted and funny a lot of the time. The title 50/50 comes from Adam's cancer survival rate (50%) but it might as well be the percentages for how serious this movie is (50% of the time). Now making a movie about cancer is not easy.... Making a funny movie about cancer is damn near impossible! However director Jonathan Levine pulls it off in a way only a great director with a great script can, by surrounding themselves with great actors who don't only care about the movie but believe in the director's vision. This is exactly what 50/50 does, this is a bunch of indie kids banning together to make a mainstream indie film, might I suggest Jonathan Levine's "The Wackness" JGL's "Brick" and "The Lookout" and lest we forget Anna Kendrick's small but awesome role in "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World".
The one thing that surprised me the most about this film was the absence of Seth Rogen's character throughtout the film. In my opinion this movie was marketed as a buddy film about cancer so I was definitely surprised to see that Rogen wasn't on screen anymore than Anna Kendrick or even Bryce Dallas Howard. However it worked well in that regard because Rogen played his usual pot-headed, sex loving self that seems to pop up in most films starring him.
Kendrick's character is probably the most memorable, aided by her strong performance in the role, even when her character of psychiatrist in training Katie McKay you keep thinking back to her and think to yourself what would she say if she seen this? What would she do if Adam does this? And so on.
So overall this movie is a feel good story that pulls at your heartstrings just enough to not make it sappy. Just funny enough to not make you question if you should be laughing this much at cancer, so in short it's funny and sentimental but doesn't beat you over the head with either emotions. You admire the whole cast from JGL going from breakdown to breakdown as depression sets in, to Rogen proving he has a softer side as he struggles with his best friends possible impending death and Kendrick's inexperience in therapy which makes her and her techniques more forgivable in the end and because of that she makes us happy she graced us with her presence in every scene she's in, including an impromptu car cleaning at the side of the road.
In closing, you should see this movie, probably in theatres because you shouldn't wait, but if you're the emotional type stay home, close the windows and lock the doors, grab a box of kleenex and just watch until the credits begin to roll. At this point I'd like you to count how many tissues you used when you cried and how many you used when you laughed so hard you cried and see what side of the 50/50 ratio you came out on.
