Wrong Turn

I have so many questions.

Like, why would you linger in a house that is clearly inhabited by, at the very least, serial killers? Get the hell out of there!

Why don't you hide in the vast woods all around you (for miles and miles and miles) but chose to stay in plain sight for as long as possible?

How does anybody find anyone in those big ass woods? Ever?

Where do I know this Carly from? (The Mentalist. I looked it up.)

How did Desmond Harrington end up in this?

The story is as obvious as can be in a mediocre horror film. Young, attractive people stuck in the middle of the West Virginia woods. They chance upon a cabin (imagine!), where they find a number of very disturbing pieces of body parts, collected in various jars. They hide under beds, in store rooms, etc. and have to fight to keep quiet while witnessing their friend getting cut into pieces by inbred hillbillies. They flee (but not into the woods, mind you) and the villains catch up with them again and again, while the young, attractive people get killed one by one. Jeremy Sisto actually gets a nice Boromir send-off.

The prettiest boy and girl of the bunch eventually make it out alive after killing the baddies repeatedly. These here even exceed the mere standard two lives the bad guys in these types of films usually have.

Yeah, it's bad. Almost in a good way.

Almost.

3/10

Julie and Jack

I don't know what to say.

Thankfully, James Nguyen - writer/director and supporting actor in this film - provides not only his own biographical info on any open source website, but also reviews for his own films (under false names).

About this he (or maybe it really was Dan Auiler as stated) said,

"The story was very interesting, suspenseful, Hichcockian. I was intrigued all the way through the film. It really is an original story. Julie and Jack is a kind of film that Mr. Hitchcock would have made. It's kind of 'Vertigo' for the 21st Century. And of course, it was also great seeing all of the Vertigo locations used in the film and seeing Tippi Hedren in her role."
Dan Auiler, Author of "Vertigo: The Making of A Hitchcock Classic"

Um. Right.

Nguyen has an obvious obsession with Hitchcock's films and especially loves The Birds. This spawned of course his later, exponentially more hilarious Birdemic films. And he inexplicably managed to get Tippi Hedren to actually appear in this one and provided her with the best line of the entire film, "Oh, listen to those birds. They're calling me again."

The possibly worst part of Julie and Jack (and there are many, many bad things to pick from) is the soundtrack. New Age synthesizer drivel at its most annoying with occasional orchestration.

Should I allow myself to give minus points to films? I am tempted....

0/10

Love Actually

'Tis the time of year to watch Christmas themed movies. Before seeing my traditional Scrooged I re-watched the lovely Love Actually.

The film is made up of different relationship stories playing out in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Billy Mack, an aging rock star, tries to make a comeback by making a shitty single, hoping to make the coveted Christmas no. 1. The song is a cover of Love Is All Around, in which the word 'love' is simply replaced by 'Christmas', no matter the difference in syllables. His promise is to strip on national TV if the buyers get his song to the no. 1 spot. It works. He ends up spending Christmas with his long time manager, realizing that he is the closest person to him in the world.

Writer Jamie, finding his girlfriend cheating on him with his brother, goes on a trip to France to work on a book. There, he is introduced to Aurelia, a Portuguese cleaning lady. She does not speak English, he does not speak Portuguese, which leads to cute conversations. Back in England he learns her language and goes back to propose to her, with her father, her sister and her entire neighborhood watching.

Daniel has recently lost his wife and is left to help his step son Sam with his conundrum. Sam is in love with a girl he believes does not know him. She sings and to get his attention he learns the drums and performs in her band during a Christmas show. But the world works against him. His beloved - Joanna - is about to leave for the US. Daniel and Sam rush to the airport so that Sam can profess his love.

Daniel's sister, Karen, has troubles of her own. She finds a gold heart on a chain in her husband Harry's pocket and believes this to be her Christmas present. On Christmas Eve, however, she gets to open a package of similar proportions to find a Joni Mitchell CD. The heart went to Daniel's new assistant Mia, who is basically offering herself up to him on a platter.

Harry's employee Sarah, who is in love with her colleague Karl, and everybody knows it. But when the two finally get together, Sarah gets sidetracked by a phone call from her brother Michael. Michael is in a mental institution and calls his sister a lot and she will always, always, always take the call. There seems to be no hope for Sarah and Karl.

Young Colin has everything figured out. He buys a ticket to the US because he is convinced that hot women just hang around in bars waiting for someone with a British accent. So upon landing in Milwaukee he walks into the first bar he chances upon. And he was right about everything. The women in the joint fall over themselves to get him to come home with them. They offer him a place to sleep, but only have one bed between four women and he will have to squeeze in with them. The poor girls are so poor they cannot afford pajamas and have to sleep naked....

Body doubles John and Judy meet while working on a film together. They act out different scenes in different stages of undress despite being rather shy and taking their sweet time before finally going out together.

Then there is the triangle of Mark, Peter and Juliet. Peter just married Juliet, who Mark is hopelessly in love with. As a self defense mechanism he barely speaks with Juliet who thinks that he cannot stand her.

And then there is the new prime minister to Britain, brother to Karen and Daniel, who on his first day in office falls in love with Natalie, who works at Downing Street 10 until his discomfort with the situation makes him request she be moved elsewhere. After receiving a Christmas card from Natalie, he goes off in search for her. Knowing only the name of the street where she lives, he knows on every door until he finds her, leaving people confused. He even has to sing carols for a trio of little girls.

One of those films I can watch over and over again. So sweet and so funny.

7/10

Alexandra's Project

Steve comes home on his birthday expecting a surprise party. While he was at the office, his wife had all photos of his family sent over to the house. Supposedly, the will be used as part of a surprise present.

What Steve gets instead is a chair placed in front of a TV set, playing a tape of his wife telling him about her frustration with their marriage.

He sits through the recording, that begins with his children telling him happy birthday and then leave. He watches his wife have sex with their neighbor while telling him that this is how she has been earning her own money while home alone.

And he learns that she has not only sent the kids away and is leaving him, she has also taken every photo he possessed of the children with her as the ultimate punishment.

An interesting concept and quite well made film.

Certainly disturbing.

8/10

Identity

The lawyer of Malcolm Rivers makes one last ditch effort to stay the execution of his client. Rivers, convicted of murdering six people a few years back is brought to a middle-of-the-night hearing, where the lawyer and a psychiatrist try to prove that he was not aware of what he was doing because of his multiple personality disorder.

The many people in Rivers' head all end up in a motel in the pouring rain that keeps them from getting where they want to go. The group is as random as can be, including a family with small child, a prostitute, an actress, a couple of criminals, a former cop...

What happens in the court hearing and is played out by the character in the motel is that the one personality that made Rivers kill has to be irradicated. To achieve this one by one the people at the motel get killed off until the sitting judge is convinced that the culprit is gone.

The real story in the film is what is going on at the motel. The characters don't seem to be aware of what they actually are in the bigger picture, so this plays out as a quite brutal whodunit. Each person that dies gets marked with a room key, counting the bodies down from 10 to 1. They all hurl accusations and cannot seem to find any common ground on how to handle their situtation. Halfway throught the killings, one of the most level-headed of the group, Ed, turns out to be the personality that the committee around Rivers can work with.

This is when the two stories overlap, Ed suddenly finds himself strapped to a chair a not recognizing himself in the mirror. He is confused as to how he is no longer in the pouring rain by the motel. But this really turns out to be the way in. When all but one of the characters at the motel are gone, the committee is satisfied with their progress and Rivers' death sentence is overturned.

However, on the way back to the prison the psychiatrist realizes to late that one of the personalities believed to have died in an explosion acutally survived and that was the very one they would have needed to eliminate. Deadly mistake.

Despite the flaws and the confusing set up I really, really enjoy this film.

8/10

Salinui chueok (Memories of Murder)

This is based on an actual series of murders that took place in rural South Korea between 1986 and 1991. I don't know how much of the film corresponds with actual events. The number of victims is never mentioned (there were 10 attributed to the same killer). However, some of the details and modes of the murders were taken from the real crimes.

The film is elegantly bleak and beautifully shot with a very tense atmosphere that keeps you watching even though (if you checked, as I did) you do know that the killer was never caught (in film and in reality).

It is said to feature some political commentary on the military rule of the late 1980s that you probably only get if you are from South Korea. I don't know enough about the history of, well, most of Asia, to get it. However, this doesn't make the film any less interesting.

I really enjoyed this.

7/10