Paranormal Activity 2 - Zero Stars

For about the first half hour of Paranormal Activity 2, nothing happens. But then in the next half hour, nothing happens. Fortunately, though, it does close with something happening. Unfortunately though, that something is more nothing. Let me lay out the next ten theater-going Halloweens for you: people move into a house, have cute, innocuous dialogue exchanges, for some reason install cameras all over the house, an inanimate object falls over, the new tenants immediately assume that it's a ghost, they read up on demons, and then one of them gets possessed and throws somebody at the camera to end the film.

Paranormal Activity had its charms, and worked in certain areas because it felt genuine. 2 has cash-grab written all over it, and I hated it right from the opening message to the families of the deceased... lame. This one follows the sister of the girl from the first film, and the filmmakers try clumsily to invent a mythology for the demon in the films, which at times requires the people on screen to try their best at actually acting. The whole thing fails miserably, especially the part where nothing happens. Fuck this movie. Fuck this series.

I Want Your Money - No

I Want Your Money is the first movie this year that I have walked out on, so I can't really rate it. Not fairly anyway, but I definitely saw enough to get the idea. It was sort of a rule for this project not to walk out on movies, but I'm not even sure that I Want Your Money is even qualified enough to be called a movie, so out I walked. For those unfamiliar with this thing, which I hope is all of you, it is basically a piece of propaganda that alleges that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president we've ever had, and that Barack Obama is little more than a dunce. It's director and narrator, Ray Griggs, uses random facts to create meaningless arguments: "When Ronald Reagan won the election, he won 44 states, Barack Obama only won 28 states in his election." What does that mean? Nothing! Nothing at all. What's worse is that Griggs desperately wants to be the conservative Michael Moore, so I Want Your Money consists mainly of random stock footage and poorly animated cartoons. The result is neither funny nor accurate, but rather infuriating both as a film fan, and as an American citizen.

Jackass 3D - Yes

There's really no way to rate Jackass 3D. It's not for everyone, but it happens to be for me, and I was glad to see that not only has it not lost its edge in the four years since Number Two, or the decade or so since it began, but it is maybe the third film that I have seen that actually takes advantage of 3D rather than simply making me pay an extra $4 to wear glasses and be distracted. That may sound like an overstatement, but that's because you haven't seen Bam Margera surprise people by pissing on them, with the camera at the base of his penis... the depth of frame is stunning, especially when he does it off of a trailer! Or when the dildo gets shot out of a potato gun and jiggles and writhes in super slow motion past miniature models of the Pyramids and the Eiffel Tower, through a glass of milk and into a guy's face! Is it art? Mmmmmmmmmmm... Sure. Or maybe not. But it's certainly all the glory of big budget immaturity you could ever hope to see in one sitting. That's got to count for something.

My Soul to Take - Zero Stars

My soul was taken.

Notes 10/4-10/10

Monday 10/4:

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The Social Network

Tuesday 10/5:

Daddy Longlegs

Mao's Last Dancer

Let Me In

You may have noticed that I changed a couple of ratings earlier this week from zero to half. I noticed that I was a little heavy on zero star ratings after seeing that I had more of them than any other rating so far. Now this is probably due to the fact that I don't have a lot of time to update consistently (right now I am approximately fifty movies behind), and shitty movies are just a lot easier, and a lot more fun to write about than good ones, and so I imagine the remaining fifty will probably balance everything out in bell-curve fashion, but nevertheless I realize I got a little carried away after sitting through a horrible double feature. While the films in question, Legend of the Guardians and You Again are completely miserable films in every way, I'm not sure they're on the level of the worst I've ever seen, or even the worst of this year. It's not necessarily that they had redeeming qualities... I actually can't think of any for either film. You Again actually did have about two funny lines, but that's not the point. The point is that they just weren't that difficult to sit through. They were more like steady pokes in the side, rather than a full on punch in the stomach like Brooklyn's Finest or Sex and the City 2. In other words, the experience of watching them was less awful than it could have been. I groaned, squirmed in my seat, took out my phone and yelled at the screen a lot less in these than I have in other films this year, and that does count for something, because that's ultimately what I base my opinion on... my experience while watching the movie. People always argue with me that a movie is good because it has a good story; a guy that I work with has been arguing with me for weeks that John Wayne was better than Clint Eastwood because Wayne's films had morals. Well, a movie can have a great story, observation, theme, message, moral, whatever, but if it isn't presented in a way that is at all entertaining, why do I give a shit? I don't think that people connected with The Hurt Locker so much last year simply because it had a good story. No, it was because that film was just pure, heart-pounding, visceral experience. Or at least that's what did it for me. And that's essentially what I look for in a movie, and what I try to relate when writing about them: my impression of what it's like to watch each movie. To analyze story and themes, or provide a bunch of non-essential details would probably just be boring to read, which is probably the reason that I am fifty movies behind. Most of them were pretty good, and it's pretty difficult to come up with something interesting or worthwhile to say about a good movie that hasn't already been said. But I'll get around to them. Sometime.

Also, feel free to leave comments or email me or something, especially if you disagree with any of my opinions. I think the Twitter and Facebook information is on the sidebar somewhere. I'd be happy to argue with you, and it's also much more motivating to update this thing if I know somebody is reading it, and an argument is more fun than getting a text-message from a friend asking why I haven't posted anything in two weeks.

Weirdest Google search that landed somebody in Denzel, WA this week: people from Canada, Germany, Belgium, India, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, three different areas of Australia, and the Isle of Man searching for pictures from Cats and Dogs 2. Thanks for all your eight-second visits, International Pet-Spy Film Connoisseurs.

Secretariat - 1/2*

Secretariat features three different types of dialogue: 1) Obviously Expository: "I've got a meeting with Ogden Phipps." "Ogden Phipps... the richest man in America?" "Yes." 2) Expressions of Doubt Right Before Secretariat Wins a Race: "Why is he hanging back so long?" "I can't watch this." "We're done." 3) Trite Qualifiers for How Fast Secretariat is Running Instead of Just Showing It: "No horse can go that fast!" "Have you ever seen a horse run that fast?" "That's impossible!" "Unbelievable!" "I don't believe it!" And when the audience dozes off for a couple of minutes and misses the dialogue, the generic score will tell them exactly what's happening, like when Secretariat is making a move to win, or when somebody dies. So don't worry, you'll never be lost. If someone drags you to this thing, kill the popcorn and volunteer to get more, or take an extra long doodie and play some games on your phone, or better yet, YouTube the videos of the actual Triple Crown races that Secretariat won... I assure you you'll find a lot more excitement in those videos, and maybe even better cinematography, and Secretariat will definitely not cross the finish line to the tune of a Gospel hymn and a scripture reading.

Secretariat packs enough drama into any scene to launch a spin-off film, and when things aren't really that dramatic, they're made dramatic, like when Diane Lane's character, Penny receives a phone call with news that her (at least) seventy-five year-old mother passed away (peacefully), the news is shocking enough for director Randall Wallace to end the scene with a shot of her dropping the bowl of pancake batter she was mixing. They're not afraid to radically condense details, either, like when Penny sits down for breakfast in a diner, and someone comes in with a newspaper declaring Secretariat "Horse of the Year" and everybody stands up and cheers (Yay!), only to be followed by a friend informing Penny that her father just died (Aw, shucks). You'd think that Disney would have mastered the annual inspirational sports movie by now... They haven't. Not by a long shot.

It's Kind of a Funny Story - ***1/2

Creating humor out of a group of mental patients isn't a very difficult task, but creating interesting characters who actually feel like real people out of a group of mental patients is. There may be a lot of fun to be had in It's Kind of a Funny Story, but there is a lot more truth in it. Though it may be a little formulaic in some areas, its flaws are more than overcome by its wit and intelligence, and by a somewhat surprisingly great performance from Zack Galifianakis, who is finally getting, and hopefully staying, away from just being the awkwardly quiet deliverer of one-liners in the background. The brilliance of the movie, and of all of its performances, is that the focus is less about comedy, and more about characters who happen to be naturally funny, which allows this material to breathe a little bit without being burdened with the task of churning out a laugh with every other line of dialogue. The result certainly happens to be very funny, but also honest and heartfelt.

I could almost see this film being co-opted by this year's high school seniors and college freshmen as the movie that totally defines who they are, like a Juno or a (500) Days of Summer, but the difference between this and those is that this never sacrifices its integrity for unnecessarily over-cute dialogue exchanges and directorial flourishes. Instead it's just a simple portrait of a teenager unable to decide what he wants to do with his life. The course that the film takes to figure this out is definitely odd, but it's honest, and it's fantastic.

Jack Goes Boating - ***1/2

It doesn't seem that a film like Jack Goes Boating should work nearly as well as it does. It's really bizarre. It's as if a really funny script is being played with the utmost seriousness by four brilliant actors, which somehow makes it even funnier. Or at least I hope the laughs were intentional, because there were so goddamn many of them. The film is essentially a master class in awkward tension and brutal comedy. For about the first half I wasn't sure what to make of it. There doesn't seem to be much going on, but less a story than a character study of four people who do not know how to act in each other's presence, as though they bring out each other's flaws. But at the same time I found myself identifying with these people, and really caring for them, and beneath all of the awkwardness, the weirdness, and the tension, Jack Goes Boating ends up being really sweet, though it takes the most absurd path to get there.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - 1/2*

Crises pop up everywhere in Legend of the Guardians, crises that are solved almost immediately. It's actually astonishing that the film made it to feature length. Honestly it's surprising. There is about three minutes of character introduction and development: two young owl brothers who can't fly yet practice floating between a few branches. One can do it, the other can't. Guess who the jealous one is... bingo. One night he pushes his brother out of the tree and they land on the ground and are swept up by mean owls bent on owl-world domination and flown to a mountain where a "pure" army is being assembled and slaves are being "moon-blinked" into a zombie-like state after staring at the moon before they go to sleep. Or something like that. Bad Brother betrays Good Brother and joins the evil army, while Good Brother avoids a moon-blinking and vows in a rousing inspirational monologue to spend every unwatched minute learning to fly, even if it takes him the rest of his life, so that he can escape and bring help to the others. Luckily this happens the next day.

Nonsense this pure and narrative convenience this extreme are rare, especially in combination, but poorly thought-out easy plot resolutions permeate the entirety of Clumsily-Titled Owl Movie. In addition, the human expressions put on the owls' faces are creepy, the movie is pretty ugly to look at, all of the voices sound exactly the same, and the soundtrack is obnoxious to its core.

And when I wasn't preoccupied with any of that, all I could do was wonder why this story was told with owls. There is no reason I can come up with to explain it. I don't even understand the world in which it is set. There are no natural predators of owls, just other owls, who have somehow fashioned helmets and sword-claws for themselves. It lacks creativity of any kind, not to mention cinematic craftsmanship, coherence, and fun. It's an epic adventure story that completely skips over the journey, or characters bonding, or even characters at all. And other than talking animals, there's really nothing in it that even a kid would enjoy. Anything positive that I may have taken from this film I have already forgotten. Hopefully I can do the same for the rest of this bullshit.

You Again - 1/2*

The lazy writing in You Again produces bad jokes, boring characters whose motivations are largely unclear, rich people who can be bribed into doing things they do not want to do for twenty dollars, tired cliches, silly coincidences, the expected unexpected reconciliation between characters who hate each other, poor narrative devices, and characters with apparent on-and-off memory loss that are all very convenient for the film. Unfortunately it's inconvenient for anyone that has to watch it all in one sitting.