Saw VI

This is like a family reunion! Amanda is back! Jigsaw is back! Jigsaw's (ex-)wife is in on everything! The first two are only back in flashbacks, but Jill is there to the final act, where Mark Hoffman gets his own little test.

The main attraction is an insurance honcho named William who has to work his way through a number of tests, usually involving the sacrifice of lives of people working for him. If he makes it in time, he will be reunited with his family. On the other end of his route are two cages, one holding a mother and son, the other holding an annoying journalist woman that got a little too close to a truth of some kind.

Now, we assume that the mother and son are the family in question. In reality, they are family to a deceased man, who got denied coverage of his potentially life saving treatment by William. Ultimately, these two will decide whether William lives or dies. The journalist is his sister.

Unfortunately, Mark Hoffman will probably live to see another day as a total douche bag, as his name appears in the cast list of Saw 3D and a flashback with him in it is probably too much to hope for.

Now I will have to lay the story to rest until October 10, when I have already arranged to watch the final chapter with my horror film aficionado friend.

5/10

Pandorum

I'm not sure what happened but it was awesome!

Corporal Bower (Ben Foster, looking raggedly handsome) wakes up in one of those hyper-sleep pods that we have seen in many science fiction films. Initially he can't remember anything (a side effect of very long hibernation). An hour later his lieutenant Peyton (Dennis Quaid, looking as raggedly handsome as always) is also awake and together they are trying to figure out what their mission could be.

The space ship they are on appears to be running on limited power and the door to the bridge is therefore impregnable. While Peyton stays behind to try and open the door, Bower sets out to find the reactor and reboot it.

For dramatic purposes the reactor is situated as far away from where they started as possible. While stumbling through the half lit ship, Bower encounters long dead bodies, some hanging from the ceiling. He also encounters monstrosities. They may or may not be mutant travelers and they look like zombies with thorns. Also they are very, very tenacious. You can chop of bits and they will still come at you.

One of the bodies hanging from the ceiling is called Shepard (Norman Reedus, you guessed it, looking raggedly handsome) and is still alive. But not for long. Bower cuts him down but he is quickly re-hung by the monsters, killed and gutted. And then they feed on him. Shepard, we hardly knew thee.

Bower encounters a few more people on his way to the reactor. All of them appear to be from different missions and have woken up at different times. Since then they have been merely surviving the steady raids for food of the monsters.

Peyton, meanwhile, is going insane. Or maybe everyone is. I dunno.

In the end, the reactor is restarted, Bower and Peyton are reunited and then there is a big twist.

Very exciting, this.

8/10

Funny People

George Simmons was prepared to die, but then a funny thing happened.

So reads the tagline to Funny People. Only things is, the film is actually at its funniest and most enjoyable while George Simmons still thinks he is going to die. Then comes the long boring bit of him visiting his ex and her kids and then her husband shows up unexpectedly. Yes, it gets really awkward, which could work well in a comedy but here just gives Eric Bana opportunity to pull strange faces (as if his starter kit face weren't strange enough).

Up until that part the film was really great, aside from the drift into potty humor (courtesy of Seth Rogan's character). What came as a surprise to me that I did not absolutely hate Adam Sandler in this. See, when he is not the one actually responsible for a story and only acts in a film, said film can be enjoyable.

Now, if only we could keep him from orchestrating his dreadful brand of humor....

Anyway, overall just okay thanks to the slow second half.

6/10

A Perfect Getaway

It's always the ones you least suspect.

What looks like a dream honeymoon for a lovely couple about to go horribly wrong because a man/woman killer duo is roaming the Hawaiian islands turns out to be a charade played by said duo, which is actually the couple honeymooning.

First, a set of decoys is sent in. Here they come in the form of a guy that looks, sounds, acts and feels like a very bad guy. He and his hippie girlfriend are neatly pushed out of the way by the real bad guy, who plants evidence on them and has an unsuspecting bystander alarm the authorities of this 'suspicious' couple of tourists.

Then there is the big-talking cool hunky dude with his girlfriend. They are into very much in love and into drugs. He is also very handy with all kinds of weaponry. They seem like the perfect for for murderous duo in paradise. Those two turn out to be the actual targets, though.

But thanks to the killer briefly losing all ability to hit anyone properly with his gun (and then suddenly shooting and killing four guys in quick succession without blinking an eye) and his woman suddenly growing a conscience and smelling the opportunity to finally get out from under his thumb (and we know she only ever went along with killing people because he had this spell over her) the two survive. They may be all bloody but they are still very much in love and supposedly set to live happily ever after. Awwww!

Side note: Milla Jovovich can pronounce the word "Wow!" so convincingly, she is made to say it what feels like fifty times within the first ten minutes. And she is not much of an actress, is she?

4/10

Fantastic Mr. Fox

This is an animated film version of Roald Dahl's book of the same name. Of course, in the capable hands of Wes Anderson, this is clearly not aimed at children, even though the dreaded f-word is replaced by the word cussing.

The Mr. Fox in the title was formerly a thief of birds but promised to retire after his wife became pregnant. Life as a newspaper writer, however, does not a happy fox make. Eventually, with the help of the slightly weird Kylie, he breaks his promise and raids not the farms of Boggis, Bunce & Bean.

When the three disgruntled men come after the thieves (and shoot off Mr. Fox' tail), the entire wildlife of the area is effected by the destruction of the habitat. After everyone is initially upset with Mr. Fox, they soon team up to get the humans back by stealing, well, everything.

This leads to all-out war between the animals and the humans and it ends with the animals on the upside. They even steal back the - now detachable - fox tail. The animals move together into the extensive sewer system, that has an exit directly into the Boggis, Bunce & Bean supermarket.

Joy and happiness all around.

Quite entertaining and very weird.

7/10

The Descent: Part 2

Sarah, the lone survivor of part 1, is forced to join a group of three rescue climbers and two police officers to recover her three missing friends. Sarah has forgotten pretty much everything of the last two days she spent in the exhaustive cave system beneath the Appalachian mountains and the general idea is that maybe the familiar surroundings trigger her memory.

All psychologically sound, I'm sure.

Soon enough, the first body is recovered and as the group ventures deeper into the caves, they soon end up splitting up and one not-so-well-thought-out gunshot sends stones falling and cutting them off and spreading them out even more.

The creatures in the systems - ugly, deaf things - are still on the hunt for food throughout the caves and the group is fair game. Predictably, they all fall victim one by one until they encounter June, previously presumed dead but very much alive. The last survivors are June, Sarah and the local police woman. The can see the light coming from an exit not so far ahead but full off those hideous creatures. June dies first (finally) and Sarah yells to attract the creatures to give the policewoman a head start.

She does make it out into the woods but meets a very frustrating end, nonetheless, hit in the face by a shovel (courtesy of a helpful local from early on in the film who looked suspicious right away) and dragged back to the cave opening.

5/10

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

A struggling car dealership owner calls in salesman extraordinaire Don Ready to move some cars and avoid having to sell the lot and have it turned into a rehearsal space for the local boy band (man band). Their claim to fame is that they once opened for O-Town (remember them?).

Don has his demons pestering him because he falls for the car dealer's daughter Ivy. Something similar has happened once before in Albuquerque ("Querque") a while back, when he was more interested in getting laid than concentrating on his trade - something that cost his best friend his life.

To complicate matters further, he also thinks that one of the young salesmen may be his son.

Yeah it's ridiculous but it also features a lot of actors you would expect in a weird comedy.

4/10

The Collector

The Chase family has recently moved to a remote location and as the house needs some fixing up, they have hired Arkin (Josh Stewart, very easy on the eyes) as a handyman. They also have a bit of a bug problem, so an exterminating firm makes an appearance early on in the film

Arkin needs money to pay off his wife's debts with some shady character. He needs this money right now. Luckily, the Chase family is set to go away for a couple of weeks and he knows where the safe is hidden and the things inside it will easily get him what he needs.

After dark, he goes back to the house and lets himself in. Just when he is about to crack the code for the safe he realizes that he is not alone, after all. The next thing he notices is that the entire house is rigged with deadly traps. A masked man, the 'Collector' in the title, is looking for an addition fitting for his collection (he collects humans, apparently) an it could be one of the Chases.

The parents are both stashed away in the basement, both badly hurt. Unfortunately, he could not yet get a hold of the two daughters of the family. The older, Jill, is a bit of a trouble maker (your average teenager) and off somewhere with a boyfriend after having refused to go on the family vacation. The younger, Hannah, is simply hiding. Also in the house is the previous collection piece, a man kept inside a red box (the box is what ties the collector's crimes together).

Arkin is torn between helping the people he was going to steal from and making a run for it. The latter option made very difficult thanks to the deadly weapons that could hit him in every room in the house.

Jill and her boyfriend make an appearance. They believe the house to be empty. When they start to make out the collector takes a creepy interest but Jill spots him and after being attacked dials 911 without being able to talk to the operator. There follows the death of the boyfriend, and a disgusting death it is. Arkin comes to Jill's aid while the collector is off investigating a sound. Arkin looks bloody and beat at this point and has no business being there in the first place, so Jill assumes he is an accomplice. While backing away from him she picks up a pair of scissors to use as a weapon, triggering a trap that nails her to the wall.

After he realizes that both parents and Jill are dead at this point, Arkin makes it out of the house but when he turns to look back he sees little Hannah begging for his help from an upstairs window. So back in he goes to rescue the little girl. Despite all the traps, some acid fluids, and one very angry dog they manage to get away. Arkin, having quite the bad day, gets hit by an oncoming cop car. Nevertheless, Hannah gets rescued and he gets put in an ambulance and taken away.

But there is no happy ending for him. The collector hits the ambulance with his own car, causing it to flip over and Arkin ends up in the red box.

Bad guy wins.

8/10

Gentlemen Broncos

Young Benjamin, an aspiring sci-fi writer, lives with Stiffler's his mother, a designer for women's night gowns, in small Utah. While on a trip to a science fiction fest he makes friends with Tabatha and Lonnie, the latter a self taught "film maker" with over 80 films (mostly trailers) under his belt.

During the event, Benjamin attends a workshop held by his idol Dr. Ronald Chevalier. During the workshop a contest is announced. People can turn in their own writing and one of the books will be published in a limited run. Benjamin hands in his work "Yeast Lord. The Bronco Years", which never makes his way back to him.

Back home, Lonnie and Tabatha set about to make a film out of Yest Lord, starring Lonnie himself and Benjamin's new friend for hire ("guardian angel"), Dusty. At the same time, Chevalier reads and likes Yeast Lord so much that he decides to steal it and publish it under his own name (with slight changes to mask the story).

The publication of the book coincides with the promotion for the film and Benjamin and Lonnie get accused of having stolen the story, rather than the other way around. Usually timid Benjamin confronts Chevalier during a book signing, which lands him in jail. Fortunately, his mother had all the books he has written since he was seven printed out and bound for his birthday, enabling him to prove that he wrote the story way before Chevalier did.

Hilariously ridiculous with a cast of laughably dorky characters (Dusty is my favorite).

6/10

Bunny and the Bull

Recluse Stephen, who hasn't left his apartment in a year, relives a road trip through Europe he took with his friend Bunny a while back.

And it is just plain weird.

4/10

Exam

Eight people are in the run for a job as assistant for an elusive CEO of a company trying to engineer medication to eradicate a pandemic. The applicants are sat down in a room - each one with one piece of paper in front of them. They are told that on the sheet there is a question and they are to answer it. For this the have 80 minutes time.

When they turn their paper around it is empty. Or is it? The spend the time given them by trying to find out if words can be seen with help of liquid, lights etc. As it is also pretty clear that only one person can get the coveted job, they soon start turning on each other to try and eliminate the competition.

The candidates puzzle over the question and dissect every word they have been told. It is all very gimmicky but nonetheless entertaining and thrilling. Sometimes all you need to make a decent film is one room and a handful of actors.

6/10

That Evening Sun

Old Mr Meecham bails from the old folks' home to return to his farm. When he gets there he finds the Choat family has rented the place off of his son. What's worse, it is a family Meecham considers to be white trash, and he tells the father so frequently.

Refusing to leave he decides to stay in the tenant's house and wait for them to leave because he believes that it still is his place and he wants to live out his days there. Lonzo Choat drinks to much and is trying to make ends meet and scrape together the money for their payments to buy the farm.

The two men come to blows more than once. One night, his teenage daughter Pamela goes on a date with a young man her father does not approve of. When he drops her off at the farm, Lonzo starts going at them with a gardening hose before Meecham interferes. And in the middle of it all is Meecham's son Paul, who tries to convince his father to return to the home. There does not appear to be a solution that any of them can live with.

Hal Holbrook is wonderful as old Meecham.

8/10

Surrogates

In a story set in the future, instead of leaving their comfortable chairs people move about via surrogates. You know, much like today they do online. This means that you could be the grossest slob in person, but cut the dashing figure out in the world.

This has gravely lowered the crime rate, but things are starting to come apart at the seams when a weapon that kills not only the surrogates but also the people operating them appears and is being used on humans. The first victim is the son of the original inventor of the surrogates who has long been disgraced and kicked out of his own company and now works against the use of surrogates.

The killer was actually sent to take him out, but his son used one of daddy's surrogates. Out to find the mysterious weapon and trying to uncover the people involved in its use is FBI agent Greer, who is beginning to become uncomfortable with the use of his artificial self and goes rogue (this is Bruce Willis, so of course he would).

A bit confusing and the artificial visuals are not at all charming.

4/10

City Island

Ok, now. This is the kind of comedy I like.

The Rizzo family live on City Island in the middle of the Bronx. They are your typical family, in which everyone has their little secrets and lies about them.

Vince, the father who works as a prison guard, claims to be going to poker nights when he is really taking acting classes. His wife Joyce obviously suspects him to have an affair. One day he brings home young Tony, who he took out of jail because he is his son but he never told anybody of his existence.

Vince and Joyce have two children. The daughter Vivian (played by Andy Garcia's real daughter) is expected home from college for spring break. What she failed to mention to her parents is that she was suspended and lost her scholarship and now works as a stripper (boob job and all) to earn money so that she can go back to school the next year. Vince jr. is in high school and obsessed with obese women.

The situations get more strained and at the same time more ridiculous until the end when all their secrets finally come out.

Made me laugh throughout.

9/10

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Connor and Murphy have disappeared from Boston and spent the last 8 years herding sheep in Ireland, when a hit on a priest, made to look like they did it, draws them back to clear out the leftovers.

The opponent this time around is the son of their last victim, the Italian mob boss they executed very publicly in a court room. They have to deal with a short (5'5") assassin (killer of said priest) and a whole posse of bad guys. Yet again they are aided by a few local cops as well as FBI special agent Eunice Bloom, who picks right up where agent Smecker has left off in part one.

They also get a new sidekick, Romeo, who they first come in contact with on they journey overseas. The three take out the majority of the bad guys. Of course, nothing ever goes according to Connor's cunning plans, which makes it all the more amusing.

However, it turns out that the local mob guys are not really in charge of what was orchestrated. Behind everything is someone only referred to as 'The Old Man' or, once 'The Roman', who turns out to be an old acquaintance of Poppa MacManus.

Much like part one, funny and full of quotable one liners.

8/10

Forbrydelsen (The Killing) - Season 2

After stellar first season, Forbrydelsen would obviously have a hard time matching the high expectations (my high expectations, that is). So it is not as good as the first one. However, it is still much better than most other  crime shows on offer.

The milieu we are in this time around is military. Murders occur that turn out to be connected to a frequently referred to 'incident' in Afghanistan. The group of Danish soldiers involved in said incident, along with a lawyer representing them, are killed one by one. There is a story of a mysterious officer calling himself 'Perk' that was part of the issue. The claim is that civilians have been killed by the Danish soldiers. The group leader, Roben, insists that the culprit is this Perk, but his even being there (and his mere existence) has been denied by special forces. And once again, politicians are also involved in what starts to appear like a cover-up the longer the investigation lasts.

Sarah Lund, who has been recalled from her boring assignment in Sweden to assist with the investigation, goes again off into her own direction and more than once she is wrong in trusting her instincts, but through her irrational methods uncovers details that prove to be vital.

In season one, as the investigation moved along and new details about suspects emerged, we moved from one possible murderer to the next (and we did it with Lund-esque conviction). Back then it was always clear (to me, anyway) that it must have been someone we encountered early on (because that is how these shows work). The same applies for season two, only here - when the culprit took shape - I did not see it coming. Like, at all.

The show picked up speed around mid-season. At first, I had some difficulty staying with it because it lacked the grieving family that you could feel for enough and will the investigation to move forward. Most of the people in this are unsympathetic. The only one that had an air of likability was the newly installed justice minister. He, however, did through his principles overboard in the end to play at being politician for the sake of it.

Solid.

6/10

The Joneses

The family Jones is made up of a group of pretty people that practice stealth marketing. They represent everything their neighbors want to be and as a result, improve sales figures for whatever new product they are assigned to push.

The mother power walks in the niftiest new clothes, the father mows the lawns in the newest mowers, the kids flash all their great new stuff around school and for their new friends. And the friends and neighbors bite...whether they can afford to or not.

Of course, the marketing concept gets the proper Hollywood treatment - an illicit affair, the token gay character, real romance and the big tragedy that finally cracks the shiny front the family unit put up.

Personally, I would have preferred less shine and a little bit more grit to the story. In the end it is all just as shallow as the values the Joneses sell.

3/10

Coraline

Coraline Jones is annoyed with her parents and their lack of attention. The both just hover over their computers writing about gardening rather than do some. So when one night she discovers a door into another world where her parents appear to be just what one would wish for, she has no quarrels about going back the next night.

Everything is different there - her mother cooks (imagine!), her father plays the piano and tends to a wonderous garden and her annoying neighbor boy can't talk. Fun!

Of course, something about all this is not right. For starters, everyone has buttons instead of eyes. Soon enough. Caroline realizes that they want her eyes as well and replace them with buttons.

Eventually, Caroline gets lost between her two worlds and must find her real parents again and escape. Interestingly weird.

Fun fact: when the false mother turns into her real self she looks just like Terri Hatcher, who voices the mothers.

4/10

Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces)

I don't claim to be Pedro Almodóvar's biggest fan. Some of his films don't work for me at all (Mujeres al borde du un ataque de nervios springs to mind), some leave me with a Meh! feeling (La mala educácion for one), but then there are a few that I embrace wholeheartedly - and Los abrazos rotos is one of them.

Granted, it is not as good as Todo sobre me madre (my favorite Almodóvar) and not as fascinating (in a shocking way) as La piel que habito, but it is a tragic love story, beautifully acted by Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar and shot in splendid colors.

Works for me.

7/10

Blood Creek (aka Town Creek)

What did I just watch?

It starts off with a mysterious Nazi sent to the States to educate himself in the occult and through the help of one special stone achieve a more desireable state of being. All for the Führer, of course. And then it turns into a Zombie flick. Now, I am all for Nazi Zombies (Dead Snow FTW!), but this?

First, we get:

...for all of 10 (!) minutes. And then it turns into:

The fuck did you do to Michael Fassbender? He looks disgusting, he speaks in tongues, he sucks human blood and he tears the skin off his face frequently, which makes him slightly less despicable each time but doesn't get him back to looking pretty again by the end of the film - he gets poisoned, strangled with barbed wire, stabbed and burned.

And not once does he get naked.

3/10