Category: Reviews
She Deviant || The Lucky One: Review
Lety Gallegos was gracious enough to review and provide her insight on this film for Cinema Deviant:
The Lucky One is based on the book of the same name written by author Nicholas Sparks. This film is directed by Scott Hicks and the screenplay written by Will Fetters. The story centers around a US marine, Logan Thibault (Zac Efron), that finds a picture of a smiling woman amongst the ashes and ruin of Iraq. He is immediately drawn to the woman in the picture and decides to hang on to it and return it to its rightful owner. However, his attempts to locate the owner are futile. During his tours in Iraq, Logan experiences several near-death experiences and starts to believe that maybe the woman in the picture is his guardian angel. When he returns home he is lost and dealing with survivor’s guilt. He can’t seem to make an easy transition into normal civilian life. Logan decides he must find the woman in the photo and thank her for keeping him safe. He leaves town along with his faithful German shepherd, Zeus and embarks on this unexpected journey. When he finally meets this woman, Beth Green (Taylor Schilling), he is at a loss for words and cannot seem to express his gratitude and explain the reason for his visit. There seems to be an immediate spark between them but for Beth it quickly turns into mistrust. Beth happens to be a troubled divorcee and is instantly suspect of what his true intentions might be. Logan ends up landing a job at Beth’s dog boarding business, due mostly in part by Beth’s mother’s meddling . Soon enough we meet Beth’s possessive ex-husband, Keith (Jay R. Ferguson) who instantly dislikes Logan. On the contrary, Beth and Keith’s son Ben (Riley Thomas Stewart) befriends Logan without hesitation. The story begins to unfold and we find out what demons seem to be haunting Beth and what impact Logan’s presence has on Beth and Ben’s life.
Logan’s character is a deeply tormented individual with a calm and collected exterior and a brooding demeanor. He is a ticking time bomb of sorts (pun intended) that Zac Efron seems to embody quite well. I have seen Zac Efron take on this type of role before in Charlie St. Cloud and he does an excellent job portraying this sort of character. The on-screen chemistry between Zac and Taylor was truly electric and made the film that much better. Beth Green is still coping with things from her past that she is trying to come to terms with so it is no surprise that these two tortured souls seem to be drawn to each other. I might also add the Louisiana scenery we get to witness as the story develops is pretty amazing. Though there were some slight differences from the book, the movie stayed true to the main storyline with the exception of the ending. I will not spoil the movie for you so I won’t give you details, but I will say that I was not completely put off by the movie ending.
This is one of several Nicholas Sparks’ books that have been adapted to the big screen. Being a fan of these novels, I have never been disappointed with the movie adaptations and I was not disappointed in this one. Though the initial storyline might appear a bit on the cheesy side (okay super cheesy) it is still nice to dream that maybe things like destiny and fate still exist. I’d recommend this movie to any of my fellow hopeless romantics (I know you’re out there don’t be shy). Happy chick-flicking!
The Lucky One is now available on Bluray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment
Beyond The Black Rainbow: Review
Written and directed by Panos Cosmatos, Beyond the Black Rainbow takes place in the year 1983 in a mysterious facility called the Arboria Institute. There, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers) has a girl named Elena (Eva Allan) under his supervision that over time he becomes obsessed with. She escapes her holding cell and tries to make her way out of the facility but Dr. Nyle won’t let her get away very easily.
This movie is a very interesting Sci-Fi flick to say the least. We’ll just say you’re either going to love it or you’re going to hate it. I definitely didn’t hate it. The first thing that came to mind after the first viewing (Yes, I watched it more than once.) was “David Cronenberg”. Cronenberg’s early work was much like this and that’s a definite positive. It of course had its “WTF” moments but that’s what make this film unique. The thing that really impressed me the most was the look of the film. You can look at it and say “What about it? It looks old.” without realizing that this film was filmed in 2009 I believe. It’s one thing to shoot and edit a film in 1983 as opposed to shooting and editing a film 2009 to make it look/feel like it was done in 1983. That takes a great deal of work. They visuals were fantastically psychadelic. They were beautiful but with an added horror element. I was quoted as saying during the movie “It’s like you’re on drugs but without the drugs.” If that won’t explain it then I don’t know what will. There were times that I had to look away for a moment because of bright flashing lights or a lot of quick cuts that made my eyes hurt a bit but it was only few moments. The story I felt could have had a bit more substance to it but it was good for what it was. Kudos to Panos Cosmatos for making this film. Whether or not people thought the film was good or bad it still got people talking about it. In time it will definitely find a proper audience and be adored by the same group of people that love Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Scanners. I say it’s a definite watch if you’re into the strange/artistic/psychadelic type of films.
A thank you to Magnolia Pictures for allowing me to review this film.
Resident Evil Retribution: Review
Directed once again by Paul W.S Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich, this movie picks up exactly where Afterlife left off. Alice ends up being captured by the Umbrella Corporation and taken to a secret facility where they intend to do further tests on her. Albert Wesker, who no longer is affiliated with Umbrella after the resurgence of The Red Queen, sends in a special operative named Ada Wong to help Alice escape. Its discovered that the facility that she is being held is underwater in the Antarctic and a special group of soldiers (also sent by Wesker) are being sent in to guide them back to the surface. Their only opportunity to survive is to make their way back to the surface and escape the underwater tomb.
I’ve been a fan of most of the Resident Evil films but this one just didn’t make the cut. The start of this movie showed what happened after the previous film ended……but in reverse and in slow motion. Then they showed the whole sequence again in regular speed. This seemed to be nothing more than a time killer and a waste of 10 minutes of the movie. After that Alice proceeded to retell the whole story of the outbreak from the very beginning again. I think after four movies (and seeing the same thing in each one) we as an audience know how everything began and I felt like this was a waste of another 10 minutes. All it felt like was a recycled film. They pulled everything from the previous movies (and stuff from the games) and pulled them together to make this one. Sounds harsh but it’s entirely true. They’ve taken this franchise and turned it into something different. Sure they include characters from the game to make you feel like it’s Resident Evil but it’s definitely not Resident Evil anymore. I LOVE zombie movies and I was really disappointed that the zombies were really not even the focus. They showed up here and there but were quickly defeated and pushed aside. I think the ultimate bad move was the inclusion of military zombies that drove vehicles, shot guns and rode motorcycles. In my opinion they were trying to capitalize on the whole Call of Duty Zombies craze. Every fight scene was in slow motion and had too much wire work. I mean how many times can you see Alice do a triple back flip then kick a zombie in the head and still say “I totally believe that could happen”. The dialogue was horribly written and extremely cheesy. It just made everyone seem so robotic. Anderson just needs to stop making these movies, wait a few years and let the studio reboot it or something. It’s gone too far. It was entertaining in moments but those moments weren’t enough to make this a hit for me. I say watch it if you must but I would call this a “wait for Redbox or Cable” kind of movie. It’s a shame too.
V/H/S: Review
Directed by a numerous amount of people (Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg and the group known as Radio Silence) this movie is about a group of young guys that are hired to break into a home a steal a specific VHS tape. To their surprise they find a collection of tapes stacked throughout the house. One of the guys goes through the tapes trying to find the one they were hired to grab but he quickly realizes what he’s watching is footage of grisly murders and supernatural happenings.
V/H/S takes the “found footage” and “anthology” genres and really turns it into something fantastically creepy. Just a few weeks ago someone asked me what movie I thought was scary/creepy and it took me a long time and I still couldn’t think of anything. As of now this one takes that spot. The way this movie played out was something I’ve never seen. There is five short films that are wrapped in a sixth one that served as the main storyline. Each one was innovative and a very unique take on each subject. I think one of the things that made this fairly eerie was that the way that each short was filmed. Each director made it look as real as possible and used really clever camera work. The other being the way that us as viewers are basically seeing what they are seeing and what we see is what basically fits in the viewing area of a handheld camera. Between each one you’re brought back to the main story and reminded that there are people watching these tapes. I thought this was a fantastic way of weaving them all together for a purpose and not just lump them all together for the sake of making a regular anthology film. I will say that the Creepshow films are some of my favorite film of that genre (Not including Creepshow 3. We just won’t talk about that one) but V/H/S could definitely sit right next to it and become a cult classic horror film that people will love to watch ten years down the road. I purposely didn’t want to go in depth too much about each short beacause I want every person out there that reads this to go check it out. I’m certain you’re going to love it and remember to watch it in the dark.
