The Unborn.

The Unborn is a supernatural thriller that draws upon the legend of a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit that refuses to leave the human world and inhabits the body of a person...

An evil child with bright blue eyes (and nasty teeth and dark rings around his eyes), nazi experiments, the Holocaust, twins, a dead twin, an exorcism, different colored iris', mirrors, possessed neighbor kid, a creepy bull dog with a creepier mask, and filmed in Chicago.

All of this and only 12% at Rotten Tomato? Actually that's about right.

It was good rainy afternoon fare with a couple scary parts but nothing that stood out. Here are the characters and other movies I'd rather see them in.

Odette Yustman, see her in Cloverfield:

Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) is the main character. She is bothered by nightmares and visions of an evil spirt.

Her mom (for just seconds on the screen) is Janet Beldon (Carla Gugino).

Carla Gugino, see her in Karen Sisco, The Lookout, Watchmen:

Jane Alexander as Sofi Kozma, survivor of the Holocaust, is her previously unknown grandmother with many secrets to tell.

Jane Alexander, see her in The Ring:

Jane Alexander (younger), see her older movies Kramer vs Kramer, Brubaker, All the President's Men:

Meagan Good is her friend Romy.

Meagan Good, see her in Brick, Stomp the Yard:

Gary Oldman plays Rabbi Sendak who can perform a Jewish exorcism to remove the dybbuk.

Gary Oldman, see him as Sirius Black in Harry Potter movies, the movie Leon (also know as The Professional), Lost in Space:

Trailer:

The Go-Getter.

This is a really pleasant indie movie with a first rate soundtrack.

Zooey Deschanel (my fav), is charming and a bit flakey as usual. Many times she is off camera, only present vocally (over the phone), but she still conveys a strong essence of her personality. Jena Malone (Donnie Darko) and Maura Tierney (ER) are a couple recognizable faces. I wasn't that familiar with Lou Taylor Pucci (only seeing him in the movie Thumbsucker) but feel he ended up perfect playing the main character.

From Rotten Tomatoes:

The Go-Getter is the story of Mercer White (Lou Taylor Pucci), a straight-arrow 19 year-old who, eight months after the death of his mother, steals a car and sets out to find his older half-brother he hasn't seen in fourteen years.

He's barely out of town when a cell phone left behind in the stolen car begins to ring. Mercer immediately finds himself talking to the car's owner, Kate (Zooey Deschanel).

Surprisingly open to Mercer’s journey, she does not threaten to call the police, but instead offers him the most curious deal: Mercer can use her car until he’s done with it on one condition: that he call her and tell her about his trip all along the way.

Singer and guitarist M. Ward provided most of the music for the film, complemented by songs from The Black Keys, Elliott Smith, The Replacements and Animal Collective.

Little Children.

I make mental notes to remember to see a movie when it comes out on DVD or cable but there still are many interesting ones that escape me.

I don't even remember if I heard of Little Children though it was up for 3 Academy Awards in 2006: leading actress, Kate Winslet, supporting actor, Jackie Earle Haley.

I was listening to a review of Watchmen on the radio. The character Rorschach was mentioned (also on the cover of my latest EW) being played by Jackie Earle Haley.

Jackie Earle Haley's name sounded familiar. The reviewer said he had been a child actor and had also been out of acting for quite awhile. Because of the similiar name, my first thought was of Haley Joel Osment (Sixth Sense), but they mentioned a couple movies that were way too old for him to have played in. Wrong actor.

I looked him up. Haley had played a couple of memorable characters: Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears and Moocher in Breaking Away (with Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern,...). Both were misfits of a sort but always a tough, scrappy, little fighter.

(If you haven't seen Breaking Away, put it in your movie que. It is well worth it. College town in the midwest in the 1970's. Reminded me so much of my college years with the college kids and the locals co-existing together.)

Little Children trailer:

81% rating at Rottentomatoes.com

Here is a brief synopsis and plot description:

Adapted for the screen by Field and Perrotta and artfully photographed by Antonio Calvache, LITTLE CHILDREN is a bitingly funny, and nakedly honest, critique of middle class dysfunction. Though the cast is universally superb, it is former child actor Haley (THE BAD NEWS BEARS, BREAKING AWAY) who steals the show.

Set in the imploding minefields of modern suburbia, LITTLE CHILDREN follows several inhabitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood. Numb-to-life housewife and mother Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) finds an outlet for her yearning in gorgeous househusband Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), who is crippled with insecurity over the fact that his perfect wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), is the family breadwinner. When Sarah and Brad meet at the local playground one afternoon, a passionate affair is sparked. In a further attempt to reclaim his youthful fire, Brad joins a night football league with Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), a former cop who has begun to harass a convicted sex offender, Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley)

trivia: Patrick Wilson plays an internet stalker against the quite resourceful Ellen Page in the movie Hard Candy.

(Synopsis of Hard Candy: Hayley's a smart, charming teenage girl -- but even smart girls make mistakes. She's hooking up in a coffee shop with Jeff, a guy she's met on the Internet. And even though he's a cute,... Hayley's a smart, charming teenage girl -- but even smart girls make mistakes.)

Funny Games.

I like watching all kinds of movies.

Some I have a bad feeling about and watch anyway.

I never seem to learn.

Just last week I watched Hostel 2 on cable.

It was just as if not more disgusting than the original.

I texted Clint (with whom I had seen the first Hostel) the following:
"Just watched hostel 2. wish I could get back those 90 minutes of my life."

His followup:
"I wish I could get back the 18 bucks I spent on that movie. I bought the DVD."

That actually was kind of funny.

I forwarded our conversation to daughter Amy.

Her response:
"Like father like son. dumbass!"

Funny Games is by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke.

I've seen one of his movies, Cache. It was dark and mildly disturbing plus I never really figured it out but I liked it.

His most successful film is The Piano Teacher.

Funny Games originally came out in 1997 and an American remake was made in 2008 - scene for scene.



I had never heard of it until I saw some listings for both versions of the DVD's on ebay.
I noticed it was showing on CineMax so I'm sure it will filter down to one of the cable stations I get pretty soon.

From Wiki, a short description:

Funny Games is an experimental 1997 Austrian horror film directed by Michael Haneke. The plot of the film involves two teenagers who hold a family hostage and torture them with sadistic games.

That should explain it.

Trailer for the 1997 version:

Trailer for the 2008 version:

Goya's Ghosts.

House was a rerun this week. I thought I'd check out what movies were on cable instead.

I found one about Francisco Goya (the artist) and the Spanish Inquisition.

It wouldn't have been my first choice but it had film stars Natalie Portman (Ines), Javier Bardem (Brother Lorenzo), and Stellan Skarsgard (Goya) in it.

A Spanish film directed by Milos Forman (Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

It is filled with beautiful period art and the camera work is such that some scenes and characters look like they are pieces of artwork themselves.

The plot jumped around but it was interesting enough to keep my interest.

Goya is the official court painter to the King and Queen. The Spanish Inquisition is disturbed by some of his works but he seems to escape any direct conflicts.

Portman plays a young model for artist Goya. She is falsely thrown into prison for religious reasons and Brother Lorenzo (who had originally commissioned a painting from Goya) tries to help her out.

I learned a few things about Goya also: he was deaf (later years of his life), his portraits had a disinclination to flatter (see below), and some of his work was really dark. And some reminded me of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (which was mentioned and shown in the movie):

From so what the fuss

I liked the comments made on this portrait below (looking closely, Goya certainly didn't flatter any of them):

The Family of Charles IV, 1800. Theophile Gautier described the figures as looking like "the corner baker and his wife after they won the lottery".

From so what the fuss

Link to the movie and reviews at Rotten Tomatoes: Link

Frozen River.

This looks like an interesting film. I've heard nothing but good about it.

It won the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Rotten Tomatoes has it rated at 85%.

From Rotten Tomatoes:

Synopsis: Courtney Hunt's feature directorial debut FROZEN RIVER is a powerfully unflinching tale of two women, who, driven by economic hardship, form an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border.

Melissa Leo turns in a gritty performance as Ray, a struggling dollar-store cashier and mother living in a trailer home in upstate New York who is desperate to make ends meet.

During a frenzied search for her deadbeat spouse, she apprehends Lila (Misty Upham), a Mohawk Indian from an area reservation, attempting to steal her car.

In the process of taking back her vehicle, she learns of Lila's smuggling operation through an unpatrolled corridor within Mohawk territory--the frozen St. Lawrence River that forms part of the border between the U.S. and Canada.

Out of necessity, they form an uneasy alliance:



Another point of interest to me is I'm part Seneca Indian.

They are part of the Iroquois Nation that also includes the Mohawk tribe.

We had many relatives up in that area.

I can't wait to see it.

It probably won't make it out to the sticks so either I'll hunt it down or wait for the DVD.

Don't share rides with strangers.

I had Wind Chill on my list of movies I wanted to see at Rotten Totmatoes' web site. I found it's a good way to keep track of something I would otherwise forget.

Wind Chill was on last night on Encore but because it was on a digital movie channel, I missed the last 15 minutes of Survivor and all of Lost because I couldn't record another channel at the same time - which I can with regular stations. (I like VCR recording over TiVo because I can keep the tapes as long as I want and lend them to people. If a movie is really good, I'll buy the DVD anyway.)

By the way, I added Kalifornia to this movie review because it also used a college ride board to pair up strangers for sharing travel expenses.

Wind Chill takes the conventions of the haunted house film and transplants them to a dangerous stretch of road where the unfortunate victims of prior events haunt those unwise enough to drive on it.

Director Greg Jacobs's film is the tale of an unnamed young student (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada) at a Northeastern College in need of a ride home to Delaware for Christmas break.

Deciding to check the ride board, she finds a fellow student (Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence) going her way, though an impending blizzard promises to make their ride treacherous.

Very early into their journey, he opts for a scenic route, only to be run off the road by a reckless driver.

This happens not much after she finds out he had set up the whole ride scenario just to meet and to get to know her (he doesn’t live anywhere near where he is supposedly taking her).

A substantial part of the movie takes part in and around their snow bound car.

I really liked how the movie started out but I think the last third “drifted” too far away for my tastes.

(Martin Donovan, Weeds Season 2) adds a familiar character actor face to the movie.

Executive producers are: George Clooney, Ben Cosgrove and Steven Soderbergh

Wind Chill trailer:



Using a college ride board for finding mates made me think of another movie, Kalifornia.

David Duchovny has written a book about serial killers that was just published. He and his girlfriend (Michelle Forbes) decide to celebrate by taking a cross country trip to California (where they plan on living once they get there), visiting infamous murder sites along the way.

To share expenses, they paired up with Pitt and Lewis off the college ride board. Little did they know they were sharing their ride with a homicidal maniac (Brad Pitt).

This was another movie that started out well but got a bit off the wall at the end.

Excellent cast: Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, and Michelle Forbes.

Kalifornia trailer:

The Prestige.

This movie has been out awhile but I finally got around to watching the DVD. I enjoyed it and will have to watch it again to pick up some of the things I missed.

There is some great imagery in it: like the field with a number of top hats all sitting askew in the dirt with black cats milling around.

Michael Caine serves as the narrator and also plays Cutter, a designer of illusions used by magicians.

Cutter: "Every great magic trick consists of three acts.

The first act is called The Pledge: the magician shows you something ordinary, but of course, it probably isn't.

The second act is called The Turn. The magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now, of you're looking for the secret. . . . you won't find it.

That's why there's a third act, called The Prestige. This is the part with the twists and turns, where life hangs in the balance, and you see something shocking you haven't seen before."

The basic plot concerns the rivalry between two magicians in early 20th-century London.

The movie gives you perspective from the magician’s eyes. You see how things are done. Early into the movie, a magician makes a canary disappear from its cage; we're shown how he did it and what the fate of that poor bird was.

Hugh Jackman is Robert Angier, an American exile pursuing a career in the magic trade in turn-of-the-century London.

Christian Bale is a local, Alfred Borden. He is more inventive and less charismatic on the stage.

They were young magician apprentices together, but became split apart after a terrible accident claimed the life of Robert's wife. They become direct competitors, trying to outdo each with magic.

Alfred creates the ultimate trick:The Transported Man.’ He walks through a door on one end of the stage and instantly appears in a similar door on the other end of the stage.

Robert becomes wildly jealous of Alfred's trick and superior talents, so in an attempt to steal the secret, he sends his assistant, Olivia (Scarlett Johansson), over to Alfred to deceive him.

The obsessed Robert even travels to Colorado to see Colorado Springs scientist and inventor, Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Telsa’s specialty is electricity. He powers the city from his house and being an inventor, has created an electro-magnetic machine that may or may not be the secret to Borden’s trick.

Robert wants his help and money is no object.

There are great scenes during some of the magic tricks with impressive electrical arcs flashing all over and the lingering question as to whether the machine works or not.

Christopher Nolan’s film has a lot of twists and turns, creating a movie that needs to be watched closely and probably more than once. He is most known for directing Memento and Insomnia.

Note: real magician Ricky Jay has a small part in this movie. I always enjoy his character acting.

Starring:

Junebug.

Trailer:





The plot of this movie is pretty basic: art dealer, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), meets George (Alessandro Nivola) at her gallery in Chicago. They fall in love and get married. His family from North Carolina doesn’t attend the wedding.

A few months later Madeleine hears of a folk artist in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina. He seems to have a “Grandma Moses” like potential and she wants to meet him and sign in up for his art.

This would be a good excuse to also meet George’s family. Peg (Celia Weston) is the mom, Eugene (Scott Wilson) is her husband. Johnny (O’C’s Ben McKenzie) is George’s younger brother. Ashley (Amy Adams) is Johnny’s newly wed, pregnant wife.



Amy Adams was nominated for an Oscar along with many other awards. She played a naive, inquisitive, small town girl perfectly. Reminded me of a hometown friend I had that peppered me with questions (just like she did to Madeleine) when I got back from college. None stop.

Embeth Davidtz was cast as a cultured, smart, urban woman with a touch of a British accent. Quite different from anyone in George’s family. She tried hard to get to know them all. I liked her part the best.






This is one of the more realistic families I’ve seen in a movie. There is even a scene in the movie when a character wants to tape a TV show and couldn’t because the tab on the VCR tape was broken off. Also scenes of sneaking a smoke. All so true.

And, just like in real life, the movie was it didn’t totally resolve itself at the end.

Bob(the cat), meet Rico the cat, movie star.

This is a movie I ran across on TMC thursday night. It's a well made documentary about people living in The Century Plaza.

The people living there are mostly down on their luck. I can't believe how candid some of them are - just like there wasn't a camera present. It makes you appreciate how well you have it in life. The movie has some very good special effects (time lapse) and is well edited. I liked it.

Rico the cat ties everything together as he takes you around in the hotel. He is almost a dead ringer for our Bob (the cat).

Anyway, it's worth looking for if you have cable.

The Century Plaza

Kevin Crust calls it "expressionistic and compassionate." - LOS ANGELES TIMES

more reviews

Director's Statement

When most people walk their familiar paths each day, they travel from point A to point B, never connecting with those around them. The buildings and landmarks they pass are the only constants. Everything else is a blur. Arthur Libin said it well, "The homeless have always been pretty much irrelevant; they are like characters in play." A character is something you see on television, read in a book, watch on a stage. We like to experience characters because it is easy: they evoke an emotion, and then we go home and forget about them.

My hope is that my film lingers just a few moments longer. Long enough for people to look at their own world and check out a perspective not often seen on our familiar paths.

Synopsis

Built at the turn of the twentieth century, the Century Plaza was at one time as elegant as it was esteemed. Indeed, businessmen, and those simply passing through the city, made a point to patronize this five-story complex sandwiched in the heart of industrial Portland. Sadly, as the century gave way to the development of high-rise and commercial lodging, the Plaza began a downward spiral into the shadow of its towering competition. By the 1960¹s, the future of the plaza appeared as bleak as that of the nomads and vagabonds who had come to inhabit it: A decaying remnant of the past in which to conceal the likewise inferior members of society.

Through Rico the cat, the only enduring resident of the hotel, the untold stories of this nebulous culture slowly unfold as he wanders his urban enclave.

Bob, a convicted pedophiliac on parole, resides in a cramped room of the plaza. Struggling fruitlessly to find more suitable housing, his throne is a dirty mattress and his only source of entertainment a television alight with 1970¹s technology. A rusted sink substitutes for a toilet in the corner; his four walls represent more an early prison than home. On the other side of the chicken-wire laced window, and not ten feet away, squats a family of three; Manuel, Chaz, and Devon. Devon is a five year-old boy who spends his time playing alone, while his father Manuel recovers from ear surgery. Should an argument erupt between the two, Bob will inadvertently hear every word, as conversations criss-cross in the light well between apartments. Privacy is a commodity not afforded to these tenants.

Other residents of the Century Plaza include a prostitute, a stripper, an alcoholic, a poet, and a recluse. For some, it is a meeting place, a safe haven for the exchange or abuse of illicit drugs; for others it signifies a luxurious break from the streets and a heated room and bed. Quality is of little importance. Although the conditions may seem appalling to the general population, the patrons are concerned with more important matters than their standard of living. The plaza affords refuge and survival.

Stories unravel by those gripped with mental illness, drug addiction, and disease. Through spontaneous conversations, their captivating tales and diverse personalities will draw your attention, and engross you in their private world. Their contentment with simple pleasures is remarkably humbling. The Century Plaza shows us that there are myriad ways to be, and personalities that are, homeless. Homelessness is not a title and should not be treated as one. Similar to the word homosexual, or Christian, homeless is thrown around as if it encompassed everyone who identifies with the title. The Century Plaza illustrates how truly complex such a title can be.

Trailer:

Bob(the cat):

The Jacket.

“Academy Award Winner” Adrien Brody in his last couple of movies, has played loners existing in worlds of their own (in movies named appropriately for those worlds): The Pianist, The Village, and The Jacket.

Adrien Brody, with his everyday good looks, does a great job playing Gulf War vet Jack Starks. Co-star Keira Knightly, beautiful as ever, has a smaller but important part playing Jackie; a mysterious character and sometime love interest that interweaves herself into Jack’s life.

Jack is truly one unlucky guy.

A Marine sergeant in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Starks smiles kindly at a native kid, who responds by shooting him in the head. This is the start. Things go white as Jack tells us, "I was 27 years old the first time I died."

Miraculously, he survives. That may have been good luck, but bad luck follows:

After a long recovery, Starks is seen a year later hitchhiking in his native Vermont, where he encounters a young woman, Jean (Kelly Lynch), with a small daughter, Jackie (Laura Marano), by the roadside. Jean has just about passed out and her beat up pickup has stalled.

Jack Starks quickly gets the truck going. Jean is so drunk that while nodding in and out of consciousness, she thinks he had tried to molest her daughter Jackie.

Jack continues on his way; this time hitching a ride with a young guy (Brad Renfro - very short appearance) who is promptly stopped by a highway patrolman. The driver immediately opens fire on the officer and flees the scene.

Starks, who was wounded in the crossfire and blacked out, is blamed for the cop's murder and promptly sentenced to an institution for the criminally insane.

Since he suffers from amnesia, Jack gets locked up in a mental asylum, under the care of doctors Kris Kristofferson (Cisko Pike 1972 - a classic) and Jennifer Jason Leigh. (I love her work.)

Dr. Kristofferson (creepy, intimidating) has a somewhat unorthodox “treatment” involving putting Jack in a strait-jacket, shooting him full of drugs and locking him in a morgue drawer for several hours on end.

Trapped in the drawer, Jack somehow manages to travel 15 years into the future to investigate his own untimely death.

He wakes up in what he will later discover is 2007, standing outside a diner in a snowswept landscape. He meets a cute goth gal (Keira Knightley) who seems strangely drawn to him.

And while at her house, he discovers ... his own dog tags. I like these things in movies. You must remember details and how they come into significance later. Here, his dog tags.

How can that be though? Time tripping? Clearly, she's the little girl, Jackie. But he can't be Starks, she insists, because Starks died, and not long after he was committed.

His death, then, is imminent, unless he can figure out how it happened and whether there's any way to prevent it....

Another version of the trailer:

Adrien Brody...Jack Starks
Keira Knightley...Jackie
Kris Kristofferson...Dr. Becker
Jennifer Jason Leigh...Dr. Lorenson
Brad Renfro...Stranger in station wagon
Kelly Lynch...Jean
Laura Marano...Young Jackie

"The Jacket" was written by Massy Tadjedin from a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco, and directed by John Maybury. Brian Eno, a favorite of mine does the score. (A small bit of trivia: he did the “Windows 95” startup sound, along with producing some work with T-Heads and U2, also working with Bowie – plus tons of other stuff.)

Help from:

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/review_2421.html

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-jacket4mar04,1,2699773.story

http://movies.eastbayexpress.com/

Another movie I like. I think both Brody and Knightley were well cast and the movie itself (though dark at times) was entertaining. I liked the ending too. I thinking I should maybe do a lighter movie next time; A story of a boy and his dog sounds good. Old Yeller? Never mind.

Film noir, movie, Brick.

I like movies. I'll watch the popular ones and enjoy them with everyone else but I also try to see some that are not as well known but I feel are worth watching. This movie is called Brick.

Film Noir is one of my favorite film genre's; which primarily describes a look, a feel, in stylish Hollywood crime dramas. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style (shadows, steaming vents on darkened streets, reflections on a rainy pavement, snappy affected dialogue – I think Gilmore Girls set in the 1940’s.)

Further defined from the excellent reference wiki:“We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric (pertaining to dream), strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel...." by the French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 (A Panorama of American Film Noir). Gotta love that scene in the link (black and white). It is the essence of what I'm talking about.

However it’s defined, I know it when I see it.

Brick.

This is a story of a loner who infiltrates high school cliques to investigate his ex-girlfriend's disappearance. When she goes missing, Brendan vows to uncover the truth; battling through the seedy dealings of his high-school crime ring to solve the mystery.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Brendan Frye, a junior-league Humphrey Bogart and his ex-girlfriend is Emily (Lost's Emilie de Ravin.- Claire Littleton).

He enlists the aid of his only true peer, the Brain, (and his only friend) Matt O'Leary; a Rubik's Cube obsessed, bespectacled, whiz kid.

Brendan's search sends him into a world of characters like rich-girl sophisticate Laura, intimidating Tugger, substance-abusing Dode, seductive Kara, jock Brad, and - most ominously - non-student, the Pin.

Only by gaining acceptance into the Pin's closely guarded inner circle of crime and punishment that Brendan will be able to uncover clues about Emily and the suspects that he is getting closer to. One of the best of the cast is Lukas Haas, playing Pin. He's sinister and effete, and still lives at home with his mother. Yes, his mother. I find that ironic.

Brick pays homage to film noir with similar story structures, notable characters, and a witty, quirky, well paced dialogue of a 30s/40s hard boiled detective thriller.

Directed by Rian Johnson, there are many great moments, camera angles, lighting, characters; never a lack of suspense while keeping the sense of film noir alive.

A sample of film noir dialog coming from Brendan (well quoted in other reviews so I’ll use too) in his locker-lined hall of the school to a bunch of adversaries: "Throw one at me if you want, hash head," he growls to one of a bunch of dopes threatening to punch him out. "I've got all five senses and I slept last night - that puts me six up on the lot of you."

From the soundtrack: Sister Ray, Velvet Underground.