Just kidding, of course! I’m anxious to hear how it went. Even just a thumbs up or thumbs down will do so I can stop checking this web site every fifteen minutes.

I always have to say Halloween was my favorite mostly because it was my first, but also didn’t satisfy my crave for possession/demons/and mental hospitals so Exorcist III was surprisingly good.

As foreign films go it’s hard to pick so a safe choice for me is REC. as well as Let the Right One In even though i wouldn’t quite consider it horror.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

I didn’t realize Cloverfield was a comedy!

Let’s take the good things first: Michael Giacchino composed a truly magnificent overture (“Roar!”) that plays over the lengthy closing credits. The overture calls to mind all the great giant monster movies and blends into a seamless, toe-tapping whole. In short: loved it, would buy it.

But I have no desire to sit through the entire movie again, which is a shame because the basic premise sounded so compelling: “Godzilla attacks New York City in a post-9/11 environment, shot from the POV of a camcorder.” Indeed, two or three sequences hint at what might have been: confusion and panic as the monster invades the city; fleeing crowds on the Brooklyn Bridge; a terrifying surprise in a subway tunnel. Those few scenes are riveting in their intensity, and the handheld, wildly swaying photography actually adds to the unease.

Yet it only takes the opening 15 minutes to realize the premise itself has boxed the filmmakers into a dead end. The decision to tell the entire story from the POV of one camcorder sounds terrific, unless you’ve ever been subjected to your neighbor’s home movies—or watched much authentic YouTube footage. The camcorder is placed in the hands of someone who’s never used it before; the resulting footage is neither as horribly awful as you would expect from an untrained, first-time camera operator, but neither is it as good as a professional. Instead, it’s stuck somewhere in that nowhere land where highly skilled professional filmmakers pretend to be amateurs.

It only works in short bursts. Since the filmmakers appear to have been inspired by reality television shows, maybe they should have really studied a few instead of assuming that 90 minutes of jerky movements would suffice. The key on reality shows? Commercials and interview segments. They give the eye a break, and allow a wider range of perspective on what’s happening. Cloverfield simply mashes everything together. It’s carefully edited, of course, to cut out the “boring” parts, and that leads us to an even greater problem.

Everything has to happen in front of the camcorder.

Pardon the pun, but it’s a monstrous conceit that every key plot point is played out in front of the lens. Reality dictates that you can only put together a composite of an event from multiple cameras, but that would violate the “one camera, one POV” rule that the filmmakers set for themselves. Alas, that very conceit becomes an unstoppable force that undermines the entire movie.

The monster becomes some kind of media whore with an insane attraction to our amateur’s camera, which made me start to giggle near the end, especially as the very predictable coincidences piled up to, ultimately, truly ridiculous extremes. (I think someone gasped in horror behind me, so I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud. Always respect your fellow audience members.) Of course, of course, of course, I said to myself as each point was checked off the list.

In the end, Cloverfield is a gimmick. It’s a good, entertaining gimmick of a b-movie that will make a ton of money—the 5:05 pm first day screening was more filled than I’m accustomed to seeing at my neighborhood theater—but it’s still just a gimmick.

Still, it made me laugh, a few scenes were certifiably top-notch, and the overture was wonderful.

Trap is the third and final part in the Hayashi directed Maiku Hama trilogy. Chances are that you’ve never heard about the films nor the director, which is definitely nothing to be ashamed of. Also, it might seem a little strange to review only part 3, but it does stick out as the best one in the series and the trilogy as a whole does deserve some extra attention.

Maiku Hama is a franchise that never really found its way to the West. Even though director Hayashi based his films on the once popular “Mike Hammer” detective series, it didn’t help to raise an interest among Western audiences. He did his best to recapture the original noir feeling while flipping to an all Japanese setting, but even that couldn’t woe them into watching his films.

The first entry in the series was filmed in milky-gray black and white, sporting a very typical soundtrack and a bandwagon of genre clichés. I’m not a big fan of the noir genre myself, so the fun of reviving the whole feel kinda went past me, but apart from that the first two films where pretty watchable. For completists, there’s also a fourth installment outside of Hayashi’s trilogy, directed by none other than Shinji Aoyama. Still haven’t seen that one though so I’m not quite sure how it relates to Hayashi’s films.

Compared to its predecessors, Trap is a stronger film on all fronts. Though the noir feel is still very much present, Hayashi succeeds in making a tighter film, blending the humor and tension to a better whole, without either side detracting from each other. Central to the film is Nagase’s performance. One of Japan’s best modern actors and simply born to play a cool guy like Hama. It doesn’t matter that he drives a ridiculous car or wears silly shirts, Nagase can keep his cool at all times. This third film sees him in a double role, resulting in a rather disturbing experience. Not only does he take the role of Maiku Hama (the good guy), but he also plays a retarded reject (the bad guy). Those who know the background story of the Hama saga will see the similarities between both characters, the ending also seems to suggest there is more than meets the eye, but it remains a strange experience to see an actor play against himself in a serious context. Still, Nagase pulls it off as if he’s done it a million times already and lays down two very strong performances.

In Wana things are finally looking up for Hama. After his triumph in part 2 he’s gained some fame, cash, and more importantly, a girlfriend. Sadly, those good times are short-lived as a serial killer enters town and gets Hama framed around halfway through the film. Hama is forced to retreat, burdening his friends, relatives and one gullible cop with the task to free him from suspicion. The film follows a typical story arc where the mystery is slowly unraveled, with the main twist nicely left in the sleeves of the director until the very end. Hayashi makes it work by keeping the lighter bits outside of the main story, letting the film itself be rather dense and dark, a decision that pays off in the final scenes of the film. A noticeable change from the earlier films.

Visually, Hayashi’s choices are also much bolder. He applies a range of heavy color filters and goes for a more contrasting look. Color becomes an important aspect in this third part, something sadly lacking from the first two films, spare a few standalone scenes. The editing too has become more in your face, with one sequence in particular standing out. It’s nice to see Hayashi raising the visual level of the film, as it definitely increases the dense atmosphere, making the film tenser and aiding the noirish mystery feel of the film. The soundtrack is still a little stale and apart from the theme tune (which is slightly annoying) has little flavor to add. It’s a shame, because with some extra attention there Hayashi could’ve turned this final part into a real stunner.

It’s hard to recommend this film without prior knowledge of the previous films. It’s not a straight sequel, but it helps if you’re already familiar with Nagase’s character and his background, as it does add a few extra (even though somewhat incomprehensible) layers to the film. Apart from that, I guess the film has enough merits to work on its own, with strong cinematography, great use of color and a compelling mystery. And of course, Nagase’s double role is the cherry on the cake. A little more attention to the soundtrack and this would’ve been a truly unforgettable film, but as it stands, classic noir fans, fans of Asian cinema and Nagase fans in particular should try to pick this one up, as there is plenty of fun to derive from this series. 4.0*/5.0*

Original review

This will probably come as a surprise to no-one, but yea, the Tale of Two Sisters remake is pretty inferior to the sublime Korean original.  Don’t get me wrong, for the most part The Uninvited is a handsomely mounted classic horror film - sweeping overhead opening, creepy-ugly ghost girls, large empty mansion - so the Guard Brothers were more interested in remaking The Shining?  Maybe.  But really where things are hamfisted in this reproduction (taking not only the story, but also, taking the title from a different Korean flick)  is that it goes for ‘more explanation’ and far, far lest primordial texture.  The ‘creepy ghost’ moments are probably the most unsatisfactory element of an otherwise restrained production.  They change the signature ‘kitchen’ haunting to be on the girl (which admittedly makes more sense, but vastly wrecks the tone of that scene).  Where this ‘better understandable plot’ fix helped (for the most part) Gore Verbinski’s The Ring remake, remember that that film added perhaps the 2nd creepiest moment in all of the various Ring films - the crazy horse on the ferry.  The Uninvited adds a boat accident and a sheriff, but both are simply filler and clunky filler at that.  Maybe because I knew the basic story (which I’d argue for the most part is not the drawing point of A Tale of Two Sisters), but a certain huge ‘Whoa’ element in the film seemed clumsy and contrived (and I have to imagine that observant first-time views who hadn’t seen Tale would notice this, the film ain’t subtle about it).  And of course there had to be some explosions in the film, a ‘virginity moment, and plenty of bikinis.  This is probably a culture thing, but the girls are a fair bit older in the Uninivted than in A Tale of Two sisters, and it takes some of the power away.  Most offensive however, simply embarrassing, really, is the ‘wah wah wah’ name-drop ending. 

Some positives include the three leads: Emily Browning, David Strathairn (who admittedly can sleep walk through this and still keep it classy) and most importantly Elizabeth Banks.  She has come along way from masturbating with a shower-head in the 40-Year Old Virgin, and relishes her chance to play the passive-aggressive bitch-queen (think Marla from Fight Club, but in a triple strand of pearls), but simply lacks the quiet menace of the superb Jung-ah Yum (See below); And hen is also the big change of the way the kitchen sink is handled.

So, nobody completely embarrasses themselves here (and actually, the more I think about it, the script has a few witty ‘middle fingers’ to the tropes of the now thoroughly faded J-horror explosion while also getting a dig or two against old fashioned ‘psycho in the house’ American horror.  Or maybe it is just my imagination.

vs

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/tr_review_transformers_revenge_of_the_fallen.php#more

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php

The second link (his “day after thoughts”) is the funniest one - he basically chats with himself to figure out why the movie was so horrible. I had quite a few LOL moments with it.

enjoy

http://twitchfilm.net/forum/index.php?topic=34.0

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