Seventeen-year-old Josh (James Frecheville) calls his grandmother to inform her of his mother’s untimely death after a heroin overdose. At least, once he can pull himself away from the Down Under equivalent of Deal or No Deal. Grandma Smurf (Weaver) takes Josh in and soon he is reunited with the uncles he has not seen for some time as Josh’s mother disapproved of the family. She had a point. Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), the oldest, is a has-been armed robber looking for a new trade. Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is a manic and paranoid drug-dealer while the youngest Darren (Luke Ford) is a yes-man to the older two. Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton) manages the family’s “affairs” and Grandma Smurf mostly stays out of it but is certainly aware of the shenanigans and what-not going on.

In retaliation for the death of family friend, the brothers gun down two Melbourne cops and in turn have the full force of the law brought upon them. Detective Leckie (Pearce) takes a liking to Josh and attempts to extract him from a life of crime which causes strife in the family. Where some stories show the upside to a life of crime with women, drugs, and respect, Animal Kingdom shows this family entrenched in crime, but more in a blue-collar sense. There are no swanky condos or drawers full of money, only constant panic and worry about what is to come next.

If you go into this movie expecting Goodfellas on the Barbie, you will be disappointed. Instead of relying on gunfights or brutal beatings, the film almost skirts around the Hollywood-esque elements and sinks you into the minutiae of a life in crime. Since the bulk of the film then is in heated conversations or quiet musings, it is a good thing there is a strong cast to back it up. Weaver rightly received the most acclaim since her performance is quite exhausting to watch as she effortlessly bounces from bubbly, to mournful, to downright mean when called for. The rest of the lead actors are great as well with my favorites being the psychotic Mendelsohn or the suave demeanor of Edgerton.

The best thing about this movie is also, to some extent, it’s downfall. Given that this is primarily a drama with just a pinch of action now and again, there is a real possibility of a guy like me (though I’ve gotten better) becoming bored. Most of the time, this was not a problem since the way the story unfolded was quite unconventional, providing a lot of surprises even before the first half of the film had passed. But, a large amount of scenes in the final third of the movie feel unnecessary considering that any other movie would have ended long before. Again, the superb acting works wonders to distract you from this but even that cannot smooth out the very rocky pace of this movie.

Considering though that this was the debut for Michôd, he deserves much applause for the mostly engaging story and the wonderful performances he elicits from the actors.

Remind me to keep my mouth shut the next time I say I should have been scarred. 2010′s I Spit on Your Grave is a remake of a 1978 film of the same name. I was unimpressed by the original with its bland characters, lack of tension and surprisingly boring execution of a heinous serious of events. The remake rectifies these issues, but to the complete extreme.

The story is the same; a writer named Jennifer arrives in the deep country to write her first novel. Before she gets to her cabin, she interacts with some locals, a healthy mix of creepy, retarded and seemingly harmless. An embarrassing event occurs at the gas station which establishes part of a motive for some depraved acts. This combined with a retarded chap’s misinterpretation of a kiss from Jennifer, quickly results in the go ahead for those acts. Jennifer is assaulted, mentally tortured, and ultimately raped repeatedly. Before the assailants can kill her, she jumps into the river and disappears. Her body is never recovered. About a month later she returns, to get her revenge.

There are some improvements from the original. There actually is a clearly established motive for these men to commit the acts that they do. In the original, they seemed to be a result of mostly them just being country psychos. Also, in the original, the men were lured in to the most ridiculous of traps and met there demise. The remake has them being ambushed for lack of a better term and dispatched in fairly quick and bizarre fashions. Having said those things, this version seemed more realistic.

However.

This film (I watched the unrated version) is quite vile. Needless to say, the crimes committed against Jennifer were most certainly uncomfortable and heinous. Not just the rape, but the mental abuse and games they play with her were just as evil. But, also the crimes committed against the men. Horrible, elaborate deaths. Disturbing at best.

This leads to the ultimate debate that should occur if both men and women view this at the same time. Were Jennifer’s actions justified? It’s clearly obvious her actions are revenge driven, but in case you may not pick up on that, she says the same things to each victim that were said to her during her ordeal. But does that make her right in her actions? If, not what would be fitting? Arrests and eventual death chamber? Same end result. Just not as inhumane. Possibly. I say that the debate “should” occur because it certainly will not. Everyone will be too busy washing their brains in hot water in an effort to remove some of the images. The film seems more interested in shock value than healthy discussion. Not that all films should result in a healthy discussion, but man. You have quite a controversial subject to not want to spark one.

The film is better acted, directed and just plain is better than the original. But is it good? Unfortunately, no. It goes too far. Instead of say, the A Time to Kill approach about justifiable homicide, which mostly involves a deadly reaction to something and then a trial, this film just shows repeated horrible acts, which leaves you too jarred to even discuss the subject.

Title that makes no sense? Subject I had not heard about? Documentary? Surely Cropsey is not for me. Quite the contrary.

Cropsey is a documentary by Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman, who grew up on Staten Island. As kids (though they did not know each other at the time) each were familiar the urban legend of Cropsey,  an escaped mental patient who kidnapped and murdered children. He varies from story to story, sometimes having a hook and other times wielding an axe. On July 9, 1987 a young girl named Jennifer Schweiger is kidnapped. After Andre Rand is arrested as a suspect, it seems like Cropsey may not just be an urban legend. Rand was on orderly at Willowbrook, a mental institution for children who were mentally ill, or handicapped. In 1972, Geraldo Rivera did an investigative report on the facility, exposing the horrible treatment of the patients (and employees) and their living conditions. Ultimately, the facility is shut down and the building left abandoned. After sometime, some of the employees (Rand included) returned to live in the underground tunnel system of the facility. Several children in the area had disappeared in the 70′s and 80′s. When Schweiger goes missing, a group called Friends of Jennifer is formed. The group and police comb the area and find nothing. Rand, who is known to camp in the area, is arrested and is clearly out of his mind. A photograph of him in custody shows him drooling and completely gone. Because of his arrest record, many people immediately consider him guilty before he is even put on trial. Another search of the area is conducted, and suddenly Jennifer’s body is now found in a shallow grave near Rand’s camp. This oddly suspicious discovery seals his fate (he is still serving time today). Jennifer’s body is only one of the missing children to have ever been found. Cropsey presents evidence, interviews and case information all in attempt to determine whether Rand was innocent or guilty, and if so, if he acted alone. It also follows his trial some 20 years later of another girl whose body was never found, but he was accused of kidnapping.

Obviously, the subject of children being abducted and murdered is quite disturbing and this film is just that. From the facts of the cases themselves to actual footage from Geraldo’s expose, there is nothing very comfortable to watch here. Yet it is extremely compelling. Essentially what we have is two filmmakers attempting to find out if a tale from their youth is actually true. Within this is the possible implication that a town may have convicted an innocent man, simply because it would provide some closure to a highly disturbing series of events. There is a lot of evidence to argue either side, but not enough to clearly indicate Rand’s guilt or innocence (despite his incarceration).

This is an excellent film that will fascinate true crime fans. It is well put together and complimented with haunting music. Take a viewing of this film and choose what side you believe.

Well, I might be able to get into a bit more detail. Centered around the Zodiac killings of the late 1960s in California, the David Fincher directed thriller is more based on the act of catching a killer through monotonous investigation rather than the murders themselves. This is quite remarkable even considering that the Zodiac murders could have merely been a blip on the radar if not for the killer taunting the police and news reporters with letters, phone calls, and bloody pieces of fabric.

For anyone watching this expecting another Se7en out of Fincher, you will be horribly disappointed as this is the least straight-forward serial killer movie I have seen in quite a while. The thing that is truly engrossing about the movie, and according to PBF the story itself, is that the gaps in the facts pull you into the story even more as all the investigators (and as such Fincher and writer James Vanderbilt) have to go on is spotty information from traumatized or less than reliable witnesses. Similar to the case, Zodiac is strung together on a series of damning, yet highly circumstantial, evidence that leads to the “favorite” suspect as much as it clears him. It is quite different to see a movie that is put together just like a court case, without a “smoking gun” and asking you to come to your own conclusions.

I really don’t even know where to start with the cast as they were all phenomenal. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards as the San Francisco detectives Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong respectively tasked with the Zodiac case are incredible, both in their prowess to the clues leading to Zodiac and the banter they have between them. (Favorite line: “You’re not an idiot, you waited for him to put it in park.”) Likewise, their journalistic counterparts of Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) and Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) are equally respectable as both are invested in the case to the point that they risk their own safety (and sanity) to track down information on their own.

He has not really impressed me before, but I was quite blown away by Gyllenhaal who begins the story as a meek political cartoonist on the outskirts of the investigation only to take charge when it has been all but forgotten. His transformation from naive and bright-eyed to totally consumed with cracking the mystery of Zodiac was gradual enough but damn compelling as he almost single-handedly puts together the decades-old pieces of the puzzle that no one else cared to. While I fully expect that some elements of the story were fabricated or fictionalized compared to the real events, the character of Graysmith (who was also the writer of the source book) was one of the most complete and successful depictions of a character that would be largely inconsequential in another movie.

That is what I enjoyed the most in this film: almost everything you would expect in a true Hollywood film does not happen. There is no grand stand-off between the lead cop and the villain. Some characters (even played by pretty decent actors like Zach Grenier or Brian Cox) are around for a handful of scenes and just disappear. Fincher leaves a lot of grey area around the innocence or guilt of the prime suspect as the evidence is compelling, but not a sure thing. Even the ending (which I suspect would piss a lot of people off) is purposely vague and almost anti-climactic with no real resolution in the case at hand, just like the real events were. Rather than detract from the movie, this only makes it more engaging as we are clamoring for solid answers that do not exist. In fact, I cannot think of a more satisfying movie that leaves so many questions unanswered.

As Kyle and his friends escape sunny California for Las Vegas for a bachelor’s party (that sounds vaguely familiar), things start normal enough with some standard bickering in the car, especially from brothers Michael and Adam, Kyle getting shit for his soon-to-be wife’s controlling nature, as well as lots and lots of drugs and alcohol. When Michael (played by Jeremy Piven just like every other Jeremy Piven role I’ve seen) is part of a tragic accident with a stripper, a wet hotel floor, and an precariously placed towel hook, the five friends are at a loss of what to do. Real estate hot shot Boyd (Christian Slater) manages to talk them out of calling the police and “handling business” themselves before things are further complicated by another visitor.

Truthfully, having not seen the movie before, I expected the clean-up stage of the story would take a good chunk of the movie but largely that is dispatched in the first act. The rest that follows deals with the five friends and how they react to their participation in these titular ‘very bad things.’ The middle part of the movie is the most compelling and has real weight to the performances, especially of Piven and his on-screen brother Daniel Stern as both have mental breaks as they try to deal with the deaths they were apart of. Oddly though, this is where things come off the rails as it turns away from being a black comedy to a dramatic character story with very little humor. I am twisted enough that I enjoyed the satiric depravity of the deaths/murders in the beginning and ending of the film, especially as another party is brought into the festivities and I liked the character elements of Adam’s guilt pouring like sweat from his body as he tries to get back to normal life. I just wish these two halves were integrated better.

I cannot figure out why I can never recognize Jon Favreau in a movie but his character Kyle is good, especially as he is given more to do in the story and not being overshadowed by Slater, who is fucking insane. As the anti-voice of reason in the group, Slater’s Boyd gives motivational speeches that are bullshit yet somewhat believable especially given the context of the story and the rising body count. Boyd suffers in the middle of the film as well though as he becomes more reasonable (not totally though) instead of having that crazy look in his eye after someone has just died. Going back to the fine line between the horror and the humor, too much one way or another could easily cast the rest of the movie in a bad light but Berg walks that tightrope fairly consistently, even if the movie is segregated too much between the acts.

As long as a movie is honest about it, I have no problem with things being twisted and mean-spirited. The story itself is somewhat nonsensical but then again, I can think of a few other movies with plots about covering up a murder so at least Very Bad Things put a new, sick twist on things.

The Killer Inside Me is based on a book of the same name by Jim Thompson. This is the second adaptation. A film also called The Killer Inside Me was released in 1976 starring Stacy Keach. This is the only incarnation of the tale I have imbibed. It is not a date film.

This film is about Lou Ford (Casey Affleck). In a nutshell (no pun intended), he is a deputy sheriff that is not too complex on the surface. He lives and works in Central City, a small town in Texas. He speaks softly, with a charming accent. Also, he is consumed by an ever growing psychosis that causes him to lash out violently, mostly at women. Having to spank his mother’s ass as a child may have something to do with this. There is a story involving a prostitute (Jessica Alba), Lou’s girlfriend (Kate Hudson) and some money, but to be honest with you, the film could have had Smurfs in it and it would not have mattered. You are not supposed to notice the story so much as the violence.

There are worse depictions of violence against women, but the scenes of it in this film are pretty unnerving. Especially coming from Lou, who seems harmless enough until he punches someone, and thusly the audience quite shockingly and repeatedly. The most brutal of violence is not overflowing in frequency. However the scenes burst through several long stretches of really boring half-narrated plot development. And they tend to kind of go on for a bit to make sure you are nice and uncomfortable.   The film is set in the 1950s and the scenes are usually inappropriately (but tension relieving) followed by poppy-country 50s era music. The violence was so attention grabbing in stark contrast to the plot, that I suspect that was the point.

Affleck gives a great performance, however I believe the part could have been written better. I didn’t really “buy” Lou’s psychosis, but it was in no way Affleck’s fault. You could see him trying desperately to make that third dimension appear to viewers, but I am afraid post conversion is the only way we are going to see that. The character was not that deep. Lou was just “normal” then loony. There was no mixing of the two.  No character was really written with much depth, which I guess gave the film an evenness, but I would rather have had some further character development before seeing them get beaten to death. But I guess, if the story is boring, why make the characters interesting? We get a glimpse of Lou’s childhood, but only a couple of times, and no in between. We see a total of 2 minutes of before and 1 hour and 47 minutes of after the insanity takes over. I am not opposed to this idea, but specifically in this film, it did not work. Alba and Hudson both give fine performances as well.

One thing that worked well was the confusion induced by the end. I started to question what events I watched were real and what other may have been delusions. The film does not clearly indicate whether or not any of it was in Lou’s head, but it makes sense that some may have.  I did kind of have that Sixth Sense epiphany, and ran back through the film in my head trying to decide even if some characters were not real.

I feel kind of odd mentioning this, what with the woman beating and all, but there are some genuinely funny moments in this film. For awhile, Lou is completely oblivious to the fact that people are suspicious of him. When questioned casually by some and more intently by others, he offers flimsy responses that are immediately discarded, and yet he just assumes he is fooling everyone. It’s humorous to watch him light up a cigar during questioning as if he has “won” when he clearly has not.

There is a lot to like about this film (the run time isn’t one of those things; a lot of that 109 minutes is quite dull), and also not to like.  I did get some entertainment out of it and can see why others may get more. It is an interesting view for sure, but if you skip it, you will not be missing an essential part of your film viewing journey.

Video X: The Dwayne and Darla-Jean Story would have you believe that you are watching actual events from a video shot by a couple from Kentucky. You aren’t, but the film does a damn good job making you think you are. Dwayne and Darla-Jean are starting a new life and heading to Little River, and are video taping the escapade.  While at a campground, they are robbed and all of their money is stolen. They are nowhere near their destination, and Dwayne refuses to go back home, and be ridiculed for failing on day 1 of their journey. They resort to stealing from a convenience store, and the plan goes horribly awry, and their vacation becomes a completely different kind of road trip. I will summarize no further, so as not to ruin the pleasant progression that occurs.

I have yet to see a film shot in this hand held video style, ala Blair Witch Project, that successfully has me believe that the character(s) filming would not at some point stop filming as the events that are transpiring become bigger than them, and they should perhaps focus more on surviving than taping. This film is no exception. However it is the most realistic film of that style I have seen. There are no credits. At all. It just starts right in with the video until the tape runs out and then cuts to black. Not even a title card. The camera goes back and forth between Dwayne and Darla-Jean and even Billy, someone they pick up at a diner. The video is quite random in that it will just cut to another shot, sometimes in rapid succession. There are even a few shots of a birthday party that the couple were taping over.

I don’t know if Joey Gibson (Dwayne) and Michelle Moretti (Darla-Jean) improvised their parts at all, but they were both fascinating to watch. At no point did I think I was watching them “act.” It was literally like watching their home video. Unfortunately, no one in smaller roles could really act so it sort of ruined that effect, but overall, it did not detract that much from the film. Most of the smaller roles were confined to the beginning of the film so as it progresses, you forget about those performances. Dwayne’s transformation was absolutely believable and almost hypnotic. You see a complete journey from care free, to timid and frightened but somewhat in control, then losing all sense of hesitation and crossing that line that we wonder how ever gets crossed. Gibson plays him perfectly; panicked and making poor decisions under pressure. Just trying to accomplish one goal, and doing what he needs to do to make it happen. It was a great inside look at how someone gets to the point of doing things they never thought they would do. There are also genuinely funny moments between Dwayne and Darla-Jean that let you know how much like us they are. They even get engaged to be engaged, which makes you want things to turn out well for them.

I think what impressed me most about this film, is that there is nothing in it that would make it great. There are no special effects. There is no soundtrack. I mean, comparatively, these aren’t Oscar worthy performances (or are they?).  It came out after Blair Witch, so the idea isn’t new. It just exists. And yet I was quite impressed and pleased with it. This is a perfect example of how to make a decent film on a slim budget. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? You want to make a film about a southern couple who end up as killers, but you don’t have a lot of money? Give the camera to the actors. Have someone stand in front of their victim so you don’t have to show that much blood. Have something happen a little off camera if you can’t realistically show something happen.

Again, at some point, as I usually do, I said out loud, “Why are they still filming?” I don’t think you can really successfully make a film like this that would not have you ask that, but Video X came damn close, and even though I did, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Very much recommended.

This movie is shocking! Yes, the fairly intriguing  premise and lackluster delivery is shocking to say the least.

Feed introduces us to Phillip Jackson, an Australian detective as he is on a case in Hamburg. We watch as he discovers a man feeding another man his own penis. We then watch as he and his partner Nigel, move on to another project. They comb the internet in a sloppily paced and sort of confusing 10 minutes or so looking for a cyber crime worth mouthing off to the Captain and putting their badges on the line for. They find a site that has a live web cam of a man feeding a 600 lb woman. Phillip (luckily for the audience) explains to Nigel how this fetish works, and what feeders and gainers are. As Phillip explores and tries to gain access to the site’s restricted areas, he figures out what is really going on. This man is force feeding woman and taking bets on how long they will live and how much weight they will gain. Hooray, a cyber crime to solve! In some pretty questionable tracing techniques (not morally questionable; plausible questionable), he discovers where the site is run, Ohio. Instead of being sent there to investigate, his sanity is questioned by his boss (after he is found crying in the bathroom) and he is put on a suspension. Does this stop him from going to America? Well that would make for a boring film, wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, he goes. Yes he still manages to make a boring film out of it.

If I had to pick the thing that bothered me the most about this film, it would be the seemingly over abundance of opportunities to disgust and sicken me, that failed to do anything of the sort. Well, the penis eating thing did, and that was at the beginning of the film so I assumed there would be much more horrible things to follow. Not that the concept isn’t horrible, it is. It’s also not a common plot for a film, which peaked my interest. In fact, so shock-less was it, that it wasn’t even until the film had ended that I realized I sort of witnessed cannibalism. I would rather have had that aspect played up a bit, and the pointless sex scenes between Phillip and his whore girlfriend toned down some. I realize that this was done to give us some idea of Phillip’s own sexual behavior, but it had absolutely no relevance to the rest of the film. Yes there is a morbidly obese woman eating and puking. Yes there is a man masturbating while smearing her with food. Yes, these ideas are quite disturbing, but the execution was not. To be honest with you, I am not sure where it failed. It certainly wasn’t the performance of  Alex O’Loughlin, as Michael, the feeder. He was quite good. I definitely believed his motives and psychosis as we learned about his childhood. Perhaps it was the abysmal dialogue and acting by everyone else. It was rather distracting. Maybe so distracting that it was more outrageous than funnel feeding a fat woman. Maybe because Phillip was the dumbest law enforcement agent I have ever met, aside from Proctor, of Police Academy “fame.” That too, was quite a distraction. Whatever it was, it’s a shame, as this film really could have been quite disturbingly good, but instead, pretty much failed. Another thing that bothered the shit out of me were the awful covers of songs like, “Tainted Love,” “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” and “Lips Like Sugar,” cleverly inserted in the appropriate spots.

Now  I am not suggesting that the only reason why this is a bad film is because it did not disgust me. That is one reason, but not the only. It isn’t really a positive however, that the film had the perfect recipe to do so, and yet did not. Once again, a film that may have been too ambitious for its budget. Perhaps if it had been given a director that didn’t have the least popular Highlander installment on his resume, he or she would have been given sufficient money to hire more than one decent actor (and obviously, it would have been more competently directed). Perhaps a re-imagining is in order.

Law Abiding Citizen is cool. I did not expect to enjoy it that much, but I rather did. It’s not necessarily the type of movie I would seek out. Someone suggested that I watch, and so I did.

I will first post this: *****SPOILER ALERT***** I do this because this movie has a certain progression and some events that would be a surprise to you might be ruined by this review. I don’t know that for sure, so I post that alert just in case. Read on if you like, but if you do and get pissed, it is now your own fault.

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is the victim of a home invasion in which he watches his wife and daughter die. The men are arrested and are prosecuted by ADA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who has a 96% conviction rate. Not convinced that he would win by prosecuting based on evidence and Shelton’s testimony, Rice arranges for one of the men to testify against the other, in exchange for a 10 year sentence, while they seek the death penalty for the other. Shelton is quite bothered by this as he wants both of them punished fairly (as he sees it), but as you may have suspected, Rice wants to protect his conviction rate. So that is how things pan out. The man that gets the death penalty is not actually the one that committed the murders. That one got the 10 years. He eventually gets out, and thus begins Shelton’s reign of terror on everyone involved with the case, starting with his family’s murderer.  I should also mention that Rice, also happens to have a wife and daughter.

Let me first say, that Gerard Butler was pretty good. I guess I was expecting some flashy action flick, and therefore sub-par acting, but I was wrong. This is more of a suspense thriller, and Butler did a great job. Everyone else in the cast, Foxx included, were fine, but nothing really outstanding. I would even argue that I did not really connect with anyone in the film other than Butler. I also found myself a little bothered by the pace of the film as I thought it was kind of choppy. I don’t think I completely bought the ending of the film either. But I overall thought this movie was good. I thought the idea was clever, and I liked the notion of us kind of rooting for a good guy that turned bad, and then getting pissed at him. The ride that we are taken on is fun (albeit morbidly) and  keeps you interested the whole time, wondering what may happen next. And even if you think you may know what will happen, there’s no guarantee that you will know how it happens.  I will say that this is not a movie to watch for it’s aesthetic value. It is pure entertainment, but well done in that regard.

This film probably could have been done better, but it is solid enough to just sit down and enjoy with a lot of movie snacks and a couple of people.