Pop Star

I remember seeing a music video on MTV when it used to be about music, and that music video belonged to Aaron Carter.  How great was my confusion when I saw this boy, younger than I was, singing hip-hop-be-bop, jumping up and down and attracting the attention of hot older women.  Was it Jealously? maybe, but watching that man on the tube was like starring the ideal douche-bag right in the face!  Despite my hatred and disgust for the boy his fame continued to grow, and much like every other child musician in the world he decided to overkill his fame by making one of the worst films I've ever seen, and it was called Pop Star. 

Going by the title of the Just-as-Douchey-name J.D. McQueen, Aaron Carter is (surprise surprise) a pop star who has some minor issues that he thinks are big.  The back of the case reads "His life as a superstar is perfect, surrounded by girls who adore him and guys who want to be him.  before fame goes to his head, his mother sends him back to high school and gives him an ultimatum- pass math or no summer tour!"  Holy Crap!! Are you serious?!  Woe is me, I have to pass math or I don't get to be a tool on stage for an entire summer?!  Why is the whole world against me?  Just hearing this guy speak makes me mad, and let me tell you why.  Every once in a while I like to go to a amusement park known as Holiday World, which is one of the great Indiana delicacies.  This amusement park is divided into two parts, one with roller coasters and other rides, and the other is a famed water park with some of the highest and longest water roller-coasters in the country.  I enjoy these rides as much as the next brother, the only thing that patience is needed for is that you can be waiting in line sometimes over an hour.  There are three things that keep me from going to the water park, 1. I'm a known ginger and so it doesn't matter how much sunscreen I put on, the sun will violate me all day long until I'm as red as a lobster, 2. every once in a while I end up catching a glimpse of the whale
Shamu walking around the park in the form of a 400lb woman wearing a small bikini and a Hooters shirt on top, and 3. the worst thing is for me to be stuck behind one of those hour long lines to a water-coaster, and the people in front of me are a group of douchebag high school boys attempting to flirt with other girls in the line; listening to all the toolish things coming out of their mouths can be excruciating.  Traditionally I'm afraid of heights, but it doesn't matter if I'm at the top of the slide, I would willingly throw myself off the platform if only to avoid a few more minutes of hearing that conversation.  Now why did I go on this rant of the water-coaster?  Well it is because that hour of hearing these boys try to flirt with girls in front of me was only half of bad as it was watching Pop Star, and waiting in that line was PRETTY bad.  

-5 out of 5

The Possession

Remember that movie I totally would rather have seen instead of seeing the Apparition that one night, which made me so mad that it cost my next door neighbor her life?  Yeah, this is that movie, and if you want to how I felt about the Apparition then you can read my praiseworthy review calling it the "Citizen Kane of our generation"... just kidding, I would never donate that kind of complement to that piece of crap.  It was actually a few months ago that I saw this movie and I just forgot to write a review, but since I've recently watched it again, it's about as fresh in my mind as a subway sandwich in my belly.  In this story you have a man and his wife going through a divorce, and unless you lived under a rock you'll realize that divorce affects the children just as much as the parents, if not more.  The father (Clyde) is struggling to keep the respect and love of his daughters intact throughout the divorce, and while every thing was going dandy on their weekend together, they decided to make the dumbest decision of their lives by stopping by a garage sale, and it's not because the father didn't have cash with him.  He bought his daughter Em a wooden box with crazy Hebrew engravings all over it, and as time wore on Em became increasingly obsessed with the box like the way a squirrel is obsessed with his nuts, and eventually she became friends with the unknown entity within the box as well. 

The Good:
Even though I'm a fan of practically every exorcism movie out there (even the Crappy Exorcist II) I recognize that there isn't a lot of original material going around these days with the genre, and they all try to either outdo The Exorcist or be just as good, which usually means they fail about 99% of the time.  Although there are the common exorcism characteristics in The Possession that we've seen already in a majority of horror films, the biggest characteristic in this movie that separates it from all others is that it surrounds itself with Judaism theology instead of Christianity, surprisingly bringing something completely new to the genre; I found that incredibly interesting and awesome! The Acting surprisingly didn't suck as well, and for that I would like to thank Jeffrey Dean Morgan who played the struggling father, and Natasha Calis who played the possessed Em.  First of all the girl who played Em--I've never heard of that woman before, but she was perfect in playing the innocent fun-loving girl who just so happens to get screwed over when she picked up the wrong wooden box at a garage sale.  And Jeffery Dean Morgan?  Is there anything  negative I can say about that stud-muffin of a man?  No!  Maybe it's because I liked him on Supernatural so much, or maybe it's because his voice is likened unto a white James Earl Jones, I don't know, but what I do know is that whenever he gets screen time he basically steals the shot. 

The Bad:
First of all that old woman who sold the box at the garage sale.  What were you thinking?!!  couldn't you just give it to one of your relatives whom you hate at the next family reunion, instead of letting a little girl in a stupid hat pick it up?  "Check yourself before you wreck yourself" ya idiot!  The other thing I didn't like (which really wasn't the movie's fault) was Em's ditzy and self-absorbed sister Hannah.  She would constantly mouth off to her parents, claim that her father was beating Em even though she was clearly doing it to herself, and felt that the world was against her, despite the fact that she had things pretty easy.  Obviously this wasn't the movie's fault, but it still made me want to do something mean to her, like taking a large branch and sticking it in the front wheel of her bike while she's traveling 60mph down a hill... and then to NOT say I'm sorry.

The Ugly:
Something that I failed to mention earlier was that this movie was produced by my man-love Sam Raimi!  He is the kind of guy I would like to share a tall chocolate shake with, but don't worry because we'd each have our own separate straws... or would we?  I thought this was a pleasant exorcism movie to watch, and unlike many of the other exorcism movies in the genre, The Possession (for some reason) has great rewatch value, which in my book means that this one's a keeper!

5 out of 5

The Films of James Wan

When I went to see Insidious in the theaters it was a 10pm showing that would finish right before my graveyard shift at work, but I wasn't worried because Insidious was supposed to be a PG-13 thrill fest that would have one or two good scares and nothing more.  I've never been so wrong in my life!  The only other time I've been that horribly wrong is when I commented on a lady's pregnant belly... she wasn't.  I can honestly say that Insidious holds the mantle of being the scariest movie of all time for me, and to quote a friend "Sometimes when I walk through the apartment at night, all I can think is, 'Do not think about Insidious.  Do not think about Insidious'".  That was something I failed at completely, because when I went to work that night I was afraid to look out the windows because it was pitch black and I thought that at any moment I could see the old women in the wedding dress walking around... and then I may or may not have peed my pants.  Insidious was the first of Writer/Director James Wan's movies that I've seen and liked, which then inspired me to view his other works, such as: Dead Silence, and Saw (hated the sequels, loved the original).  After viewing Insidious and finishing Dead Silence I was thinking to myself "what is it about Wan's movies that makes them so scary to boot?!"  because Dead Silence in my opinion was almost just as scary

as Insidious, but it didn't scar me as much because I watched it during the day.  Two of the things he does well is that he uses the music and silence perfectly, meaning that he'll have a scene where a person walks around the house and it's so quiet you can hear the mice eating or mating in the walls, then suddenly you'll have the crazy/horrific violin music burst out when a ghost or a demon makes itself known!! 
James Wan is so good at creating those horrific moments that when they happen and I get scared, I squeal like a pig in the slaughterhouse and my mind is taken back to the basic fears of my youth when I was afraid of what was under the bed or living in the closet.  While the music and silence are some of the greatest weapons Wan has in his movie making arsenal (hehe, arsenal), the single greatest (and scariest) characteristic he uses in all his films is his use of frightening facial expressions.  Eff that dude!!  some of the facial expressions he uses scare me about as much as the dog Shiloh gets scared when getting beaten by his owner.  A perfect example of creepy faces is the entire film of Dead Silence with all the Dummies.  I don't know who in the world thought dummies were cute and loveable, because to me I thought they were the source of all evil way before Slappy made them famous in Goosebumps, but Dead
Silence brought their creepiness to a whole new level.  It looks like things are only going to get crazier as well, because James Wan's new movie called The Conjuring is coming out soon, and some of the earlier reviews I've been reading say "it's the scariest supernatural horror film in decades" which sounds like something people say about a lot of movies, but since this is regarding a James Wan film it gives me a lot of promise of something awesome!  Below the trailer for The Conjuring is the trailer for Insidious Chapter 2, so I can already see myself viewing both these movies in the theater, blaming my shaking hands on low blood sugar.

Horror Movie Update

V/H/S/2
Found footage movies have (in my opinion) been run into the ground, and if there are anymore like the Paranormal Activity movies, or Chernobyl Diaries, then I'm going to explode and start shooting the squirrels running around on my front lawn.  Just when I was about to give up on found footage movies and lock and load my squirrel gun I saw the first V/H/S film, and although it was gritty and borderline nauseating with all the shaking cameras, I thought it revived some new life in the Found Footage Genre.  Now although V/H/S/2 didn't feature any work from master of horror Ti West, I thought in some ways that the sequel surpassed the original.  First of all, after generating a lot of buzz and rave reviews from the horror fan base, the sequel was given more money to complete the film, so you're seeing a lot less "camera-shaking" and greater special effects that resemble what you would see in a big budget flick.  Second of all, the sequel has more blood involved, especially with the segment about a bike rider being bit by a zombie where be becomes the tool in a massive zombie outbreak, so it should be known that I was jumping up and down for joy.  Although I found the stories to be much more entertaining than the original V/H/S, the one fall back was that the stories weren't as creepy as the ones found in the original, but you can't win them all right?

4 out of 5

ABCs of Death

I think I finally realized that I have a type.  Just like the V/H/S franchise the ABCs of Death is a Horror Anthology without the shaky-camera crap that isn't just a combination of 4 or 5 short horror films, instead this one has 26 short films done by 26 different horror directors; one film for each letter of the alphabet (if you didn't get that all ready then there is no hope for you).  At first it is about as exciting as getting a $5 Hot n Ready from Little Ceasers, but the only downside to there being so many short films is that you're bound to run into a few duds.  That shouldn't prevent you from witnissing this flick, because although there may be a few duds the fact remains that there are 26 different films in this movie, and that while one segment may suck the next one could be a bag of diamods (or smoked oysters, or anything you find desirable).  Now how it all works is that the movie takes each letter of the alphabet, for example "A", and the filmmakers have to find a word that begins with the letter, then has to find a scenerio where people die based on what that word is.  This makes it a bundle of fun because the word isn't revealed to you until the end of each segment, so during each short film you're just trying to figure out what the word is before it's revealed to you.  

3 1/2 out of 5
 

American Mary

Good "Body-Horror" films are hard to come by.  These are films that involve grotesque and unsettling body

transformations that have a goal aimed at making you feel sour at the end.  American Mary might very well be the best body-horror film I've ever seen, and let me tell you why.  First thing I loved about this film is the style, and that can be attributed to directors Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska who have a nack for making "High Fashion" films, so its more like a disturbing version of the Devil Wears Prada and is reminiscent of the style found in American Psycho.  It follows the story of a medical student named Mary Mason who, surprise surprise, is as broke as a joke, and as a result is having a tough time in her personal life.  After performing an unsanctioned "life or death" surgery on an individual, the word spreads to everybody that there is a surgeon who will perform any desired surgery without the fear of being turned away or caught, the only catch is you have to pay her a large sum of money.  Thus begins Mary's new profession as an underground surgeon, and every thing was dandy until she got sexually assaulted by one of her professors, causing her to plunge into absolute madness, similar to Lindsey Lohan's life.  This film is gnarly, and it's about as uplifting as the Westboro Baptist Church, so it is definitely not for the faint of heart.

4 1/2 out of 5

World War Z

Lets see, how do I feel about a zombie movie where there isn't really any gore? initially that sounds like the worst idea since the movie Cat in the Hat, so going to this movie made me skeptical, regardless of Brad Pitt blessing it with his presence or not.  it follows the story of a retired UN agent who decides that making pancakes for his family is a far better way to make money than earning the big bills at his old job, and one day while he was driving his family around the city taking in the sounds of car horns, sick pigeons, and Hobos arguing over cardboard boxes, an Outbreak occurs and everyone starts eating each other like High Schoolers at a Twilight Premiere.  Luckily he and his family gets away while the rest of the city went to the crapper, and he is hired back on to see if he can track down a cure.

The Good:
Zombies hold a dear place in my heart.  With Romero's Dead series, Rec 3: Genesis and Dead Alive, I've grown accustomed to seeing zombies rip the guts out of a human , and then feasting on it like it's a beef n' cheddar sandwich from Arbys (product placement, send a check).  Knowing that this Zombie flick was PG-13 it made me skeptical, because I knew I wasn't going to get the gore I wanted.  I quickly found out though, that what the movie lacks in awesome gore it makes up for in ENORMOUS HORDES of zombies mowing people down like an unstoppable rebel force!  Seriously, those moments in the movie where zombies are climbing up each other while trying to reach a helicopter or the top of the wall were so thrilling I thought I was going to have to get my extra pair of underpants I keep in the glove compartment of my car.  And we can make fun of Brad Pitt all we want, but a brother can't deny that that man can act, even if it's in a big-budget zombie movie like this one. 

The Bad: 
I've sort of already mentioned it, but the fact that I didn't see anyone get ripped to shreds sort of let me down, so i'm hoping that when the movie is released on DVD that it's going to have an UNRATED version of the movie that will satisfy all my sick desires that the PG-13 one couldn't. 

The Ugly:
This movie is far from being the next revolutionary zombie flick such as 28 Days Later or Night of the Living Dead, but I'm the kind of guy that goes to the theater to have fun, and this movie proved to me that there are still some fun summer movies out there, and it also proved that there are some new zombie ideas that can still be used.  So I'm warning y'all not to expect this to be a near perfect movie, because if you do then you'll be disappointed (like when you find out your bread is moldy), but instead try to enjoy it for what it is, a popcorn scarfing thrill-fest.

3 1/2 out of 5

Beautiful Creatures

Do you all remember that time when Justin Bieber got pregnant and gave birth to a wonderful bunch of little girls known as the band One Direction?  Well, it seems like the same thing has happened to the Twilight Franchise, because when that series ended it gave birth to a butt load of other supernatural romance stories, and one of its offspring is the “Beautiful Creatures”.  And now, because vampires, witches, and werewolves have been used, the next supernatural love story will have to be between a high schooler and Bigfoot… but Hollywood will never produce that movie because it would look too much like a pedophile stalking a minor.  Now despite the fact that I’m not the movies target demographic (12-yr old girls and boys experiencing infatuation for the first time) I found this movie to be quite enjoyable.  It had a wonderful cast including Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, who still sounds like he’s been smoking a regular 8-packs a day, and the two newcomers who play the lovebirds being twitter-pated with each other.  To be honest I don’t think that this movie will get a sequel or become the next twilight saga, based on how little I've heard of this book before the movie, but standing on its own it’s a pleasant experience that will play with the hearts of all 12-year old girls around the world.

3 out of 5