Non-Stop

This was exciting!

An US air marshal with a whole list of personal issues is getting texts from an unknown fellow passenger requesting a money transfer or every 20 min. someone will get killed. And that is what happens, because everything is made out to frame the air marshal, here played by Liam Neeson (finally not the "I will find you and I will kill you!" guy).

What follows is a guy trying to save himself and the passengers while everyone around him suspects that he is responsible for all of this. His only loyal aid is the woman that sits next to him on the plane, while everyone else is eyeing him suspiciously.

Of course, passengers start taking things into their own hands, trying to overwhelm the air marshal. One person on board is law enforcement himself, working for NYPD, and rallying the troops around him.

In the end, of course, the Liam Neeson character will be redeemed and become the celebrated hero that saved all but a few lives (the ones killed in 20 min. intervals).

Pure entertainment.

7/10

Saw II

Jigsaw's games are getting more elaborate in part 2. Previously, he usually involved one, sometimes two, people in his little schemes. In Saw II he has a whole house full of players fighting for survival. One of them is a survivor from part 1 of the series, Amanda.

Of course, Amanda turns out to be so much more than this. And anyway, the on-goings in the house are not the actual story. This is much more about Jigsaw wanting Eric Matthews to listen to him. That is the most important rule for this part of the game: listen.

But poor Eric is consumed by his anger and fear because his son is one of the people in the room. In his desperation of wanting to help the boy now! he cannot sit still to abide by the rules. This turns out to be his own downfall. But Jigsaw lets the boy live, which is a nice gesture. Unfortunately, his daddy will never know.

The house holds medication that all the players need to survive the poison gas they have been breathing in since they woke up. The traps holding the syringes with the vital substance or the key (sometimes an actual key) to open the hiding place are evil, of course. There are two I especially love/hate.

A syringe is kept in a box and is visible to the unfortunate woman trying to get to it. There are two openings on the bottom of the box to get your hand through and reach the substance. The problem...once you push your hands in, it is no longer possible to get them back out again, or at least not with help from someone else, because any down movement will make you cut yourself very badly.

My very, very favorite and the most disgusting trap is the pit full of used needles and syringes that was meant for Xavier. But Xavier talks a big game and muscles others into doing the really gross stuff. He throws Amanda into the pit.

As I said in my previous entry, the room from part 1 gets a re-visit and is once again a central part to the story. This is where Eric ends up - right place but wrong time. And jigsaw has found himself an eager student in Amanda.

8/10

Saw

I just realized that most of my blog entries are more or less plot summaries of the films I watch. You can get those everywhere on the web, which makes it redundant. So, I will try to not do that in the future. Not sure what this means for my entries, but there it is. Maybe I will go back and rewrite some of my previous ones. Haven't decided, yet. Anyway....

Two friends and I meet roughly once per months for a movie night. We will watch anywhere from two to four films (depends on how early we start), most - but not all - of them will be horror films. Last night we started on the Saw series, because one friend had never seen any of the films (imagine!) and the other two of us couldn't quite remember how many we have actually watched.

...

This series is really kind of awesome. There are some aspects of the first film that I remember clear as day, but when watching it again last night, I found that there was so much I blocked out. All those flashbacks and scenes that take place elsewhere than inside the room gave me a few of those "oh, yes, that happened, too" moments. For example I could not for the life of me remember that Michael Emerson and Ken Leung are in this. Of course, this probably means that I watched Saw before I watched Lost and I simply did not have anything to connect them with.

What struck me most about the second viewing, though, was that I found myself thinking whether this film would also work without any (or most) of those scenes. What if it actually only took place inside the room? I get that this may leave a few gaps in the story for the viewer, but what that really be so bad? Don't get me wrong, Saw is great as it is, but I would not mind an alternate version that is more sparse.

I absolutely love, love, love the ending of this. Sure, I knew it was coming but I was so looking forward to it. Not even the gross-out bit of Dr. Gordon sawing his own foot off (that bit too) but the revelation of Jigsaw. I also love that they tied this room into the second part of the series, but I am getting ahead of myself...

8/10

Burning Bright

Things I learned from watching Burning Bright.

(1) Buying a tiger as a private citizen in the US is a piece of cake. It requires barely any paper work.

(2) If you tell you college aged stepdaughter that her mother did not leave a will and conveniently forget to mention the life insurance policy that leaves money to the stepdaughter and stepson, she will take that at face value and never suspect you to do something so ridiculous as lie to her. Never mind that you just cleared out her bank account.

(3) A boy that yells out things like "No red!" and "Eat! Now!"at random makes for a realistic portrait of a child with autism. Holding your flat hand in front of his face will always calm him down.

(4) A young woman with a crowbar will tear a hole into a wall quicker than a tiger can tear down a flimsy cupboard door.

(5) If you plan on killing you stepchildren by setting a tiger free inside your boarded up house, maybe you should think about taking the gun with you when you go to hang out in the local bar.

(6) Making someone have to look for their cell will add additional excitement to any film.

(7) Hiding in a big freezer is a great idea.

(8) When you return home from your night at the bar to hopefully find your would be victims dead, don't just walk inside without first checking where the tiger is.

(9) The fact that you use a reference to a William Blake poem as a title will probably be lost on your target audience.

2/10

Mimic

Ugh. I hate bugs.

Don't worry, I knew what I was getting into with this as Mimic is a Guillermo del Toro film. As the man himself once said, "I have a sort of fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." Dark this is, and full of bugs...big ass bugs living in the New York underground.

From the beginning...

The newly discovered Stickler's virus is spread by the common cockroach and threatens to kill off an entire generation of children. Then entomologist Susan Tyler introduces a genetically engineered bug, the Judas Breed to kill off the cockroaches. The bugs live in a hive system with only one fertile male and are designed to die out after one generation.

Then, three years later, two young boys want to make a quick buck by selling a collection of butterflies and "the weird bug" to Susan, whom they refer to as 'the Bug Lady'. She recognizes the breed as a mutant of her own creation. Together with her husband, Dr. Peter Mann, who works for the CDC, she wants to investigate in the subway tunnels.

What they find are bugs of unbelievable size, all female, and they are all out to kill them. The Judas Breed has mutated through what is known as mimicry, hence the film title, but this should have taken many generations.

In any case, stumbling through the subway tunnels are Susan, Peter, his CDC colleague Josh (who will meet a nasty end), a subway cop and an elderly gentlemen, who made his way through the tunnels looking for a boy (his grandson?), who seems to be autistic. Together, they not only have to stay alive through the bug infestation and try to make it back to street level, but they also have to kill off the entire species of Judas Breed before it can migrate out of the tunnel systems. Not everyone of the group survives, with the cop heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good, but in the end humanity prevails.

The opening credits are visually stunning and those bugs are really disgusting in any size and state of development.

5/10

And Then There Were None

I have a thing for old b/w versions of the stories of Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, Edgar Wallace and the likes. Hence, a 1945 version of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians works for me.

This is a version of said story that one could easily imagine as an on stage production. The setting is very limited (a house indoors and out, a small boat) and it is played out like a stage production. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

The material relies heavily on acting and not on surroundings. It has an air of sophistication about it that would nowadays be replaced by grisly details and lots of movie blood (one guy is said to be cut in half!).

Weirdly enough, this genre does not work for me in book form, though. Never made it through a single Christie book.

6/10

Cube

Cube is one of those wondrous films that feature nobody you have ever heard of and develop from a simple idea and visual.

Six people that have seemingly nothing in common wake up entrapped in cubic rooms. Each room has portals - one in the middle of each side - that leads into another cubic room. They have no recollection of how they got there and - after some deliberation - venture on together to look for a way out.

Only trouble is that any given new cube/room could hold a deadly trap - and quite wonderful they are. You could be sliced into pieces, you could take a load of acid in the face, the room could turn into an iron maiden. At first, they test for traps by use of their shoes. Eventually, the figure out that each room has a unique set of nine-digit numbers and deduct that whether or not the adjoining room holds a trap can be figured out through the number based on whether it is a prime number or not.

Thankfully, one of the six is a maths wiz. But once the prime number theory fails them they have to adapt their search by a new numeric parameter. Here another of the group comes into play. One young, mentally challenged man, who was previously regarded as a burden to the group, can calculate impossile problems in his head in no time.

As the search for an exit goes on, people get more and more agitated and turn on each other. Through trial and error they finally do figure out a way to make it out again, by being in the right room at the right time. See, it turns out that the rooms shift and the numbers not only include coordinates but also a time frame (it is all very mathematical and way above my head).

So simple, yet so effective.

8/10

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

King Rat

British soldiers, together with a handful of US Americans and Australians, are incarcerated in Chengi prison, Singapore. They move about relatively free but are kept in check by the ocean and jungle.

The POWs are gaunt and wearing tethered clothes, except for the US Corporal King who has established quite the florishing black market business. The soldiers he shares his hut with cater to his every whim, as they do profit off of his sense of business and survival. King pays off a number of other soldiers and gives them cuts of his earnings.

When he spots a British soldier, Marlowe, who is quite adapt in communicating with the enemy soldiers, he offers to employ him as a translator. Marlowe is not interested at first but eventually succumbs to the charms and the slightly better life offered to friends of King. The one trying to keep everyone in check and make sure that each soldier gets his fair share of rations is British Lt. Grey, who is almost too straight for his own good.

One way that Marlow profits from his friendship with King is that when he gets severely injured and is in danger of losing his arm to gangrene, it is King that pays for the medication needed to prevent the amputation.

But the end of the war also puts an end to King's reign. He - like the rest of them - has to go back to his real life, where his position is surely not as special as in the camp.

Not too spectacular but very well acted, I thought. King is played by George Segal, Grey by Tom Courtenay and Marlowe by James Fox (who I have been seeing quite a lot of lately....).

8/10

Feast

This was fun!

A group of people are stranded in a bar when they are attacked by monsters. There is no explanation where those creatures came from and how they ended up in the middle of nowhere. The collection of bar maids, travelers and local weirdos have to work together to survive (not many do).

At first, we are introduced to the characters in the film through humorous inserts. Nobody has a name, they are referred to as "Hero" or "Bozo" or "Grandma" etc. and the entire spectrum of humanity is pretty much covered. There is blood and puke and a popped-out eye.

There is also Henry Rollins in pink ladies' sweats (the monsters will eventually use him as a battering ram to break their way into the bar).

I hear there is a part II. (Yes!)

7/10

The Evil Dead

Poor timid Ash. Here he thought he was going on a nice road trip with his girl, his sister and a couple of friends. And then it turns into this horror trip.

First, they hear weird sounds and the basement door flies open. When they investigate they find a nasty looking book and an audio tape. Feeling adventurous, the friends listen to the tape that unfortunately releases demons onto the little cabin they are in.

Then the sister investigates noises in the woods (like you do) and gets attacked by same woods (so far, so normal). The group soon realizes that all is not well and they will be stuck at least for the night.

But soon sis starts turning into this...thing that attacks and after she injures the girlfriend, she turns as well. So the demons take one after the other with only Ash remaining to fend for himself. And boy does he give it his all. He makes a full transformation from scream queen to bad ass in the course of this one night. He lives to tell the tale.

Cult horror that pulls out all the stops and sometimes, interestingly, slows down to show, say, bodies decaying before delivering another blow.

Quite awesome, this.

8/10

The Ward

Kristen is put into a mental facility after she burned down a farm house and can't quite remember doing it or why she did it.

She shares the ward with a handful of other young women who are different kinds of crazy. Collectively they are being haunted by one Alice Hudson, who appears to be a ghost or apparition. Alice kills off the girls one by one while the remaining few try to get away from the hospital.

In the end, Kirsten slays the ghost (with an axe, you know....like you do) only to learn that she was all the inmates all along. She came in as Alice and to deal with a childhood trauma she developed multiple personalities.

The whole thing was kind of meh! and the conclusion is stupid if you want my opinion.

3/10

Laa-thaa-phii (Ghost Game)

Again, a ghost story. This time from Thailand.

A game show is held in an old war camp in Cambodia. The goal is to stay longer than the other contestants, despite being scared out of your wits and having to fulfill disturbing tasks, like chaining each other to torture devices and cracking open skulls.

Initially, we are fed the 'history' of the camp, where a war lord tortured and killed prisoners and - one fateful May 9th - his soldiers and himself. The game show takes place in the first days of May, of course.

There are 11 contestants in all, two of which are the winner and runner-up of the previous year's show. Why they would be allowed to participate again and, indeed, why they would care to is never discussed over the course of the film. They are only suspected of manipulating their opponents to walk away with the 5 million price (5 million Thai Baht, that is). Another contestant was placed in the group by the production company. What her function is is never is explained either.

Anyway, some of the people start seeing ghosts. Specifically, the ghost of one woman, who was hanged in the camp right before the big bad military boss went nuts and killed everyone. And when May 9 finally clocks in, people start dying. First, the entire TV crew disappears from their post in the studio, only later to be found slaughtered elsewhere, some practice self mutilation (one with chisel and hammer) and other are killed by a shape shifting ghost.

Only once does one contestant (last year's winner) try to help one of her suffering opponents, while everyone else merely stand by horrified and watch others die.

Nice premise, could have been much scarier, though. Too many holes in the plot to be fully enjoyed.

4/10

The Twilight Zone: Where Is Everybody?

This is the very first episode of The Twilight Zone. Ever.

It launches with an intro by Rod Serling, in which he addresses potential buyers of commercial time. He relates what the show is about and gives a glimpse of some of the episodes to come, showing off some of the props to be used. He also boldly predicts that this is a high quality products. He turned out to be right, of course.

Where Is Everybody? is about a man walking down a country road and into an empty diner in which the music box plays at full volume and the coffee is still on the stove but nobody appears to be around. He assumes that somebody must be in shouting distances, so he gives his order anyway and starts talking away. One thing he announces is that he is not sure who he is, but he knows he is hungry and has a bit of money to pay for coffee and breakfast. He helps himself to a cup, throws a coin onto the bar and heads off down the road again.

The town he comes into is as deserted as the diner was. He tries and fails to find anybody in the shops. At one point he thinks he sees a woman sitting in a car and starts talking to her immediately, before realizing that it's a mannequin.

Not only does the man not know who he is, he also does not remember waking up. All he remembers is walking. Also, he feels he is being watched.

What is actually happening is he is an astronaut in training, confined in an empty room to test whether he can potentially stay sane locked inside a tiny aircraft. As he gets carried away on a stretcher, he starts talking to the moon he was supposed to travel to.

7/10

Elevator

Nine people get stuck in an elevator when a stupid, arrogant little brat (grandpa's little princess) decides to "accidentally" push the emergency stop button because one of the other people in the elevator is claustrophobic (and, also, an asshole).

The dynamics in the group are grounds for conflict.

(1) the little brat
(2) the elderly rich guy, grandfather to said little girl, building owner
(3) the claustrophobic comedian, racist
(4) the security guy of Iranian origin, victim of racism
(5) the overweight company guy, working for (2)
(6) a young blonde, pregnant with the child of
(7) a young, handsome hot shot company guy, working for (2)
(8) his fiance, journalist
(9) an elderly lady, husband killed himself over money he lost thanks to (7) and (2)

Lady number (9) carries a bomb upon her body. Her plan was to 'make a statement' by blowing herself up at the party held in honor of the big cheese. Getting stuck in the elevator was not part of the plan and makes the situation all the more disagreeable for everyone involved. She eventually dies of a (stress-induced, one assumes) heart attack but not before alerting everyone about the bomb issue.

Accusations fly. They pull together to try and escape and just when they are about to catch a break, the stupid brat decides to frantically push the buttons again, causing the elevator to drop a few stories and ripping off the arm of heroic (7). Thanks to the journalist ladies and modern technology, they broadcast their ordeal and try to get help asap.

Most, but not all, get out alive.

3/10

The Servant

A claustrophobic film about an upper-class English twit named Tony and his manservant Barrett. Tony's fiance, Susan, immediately dislikes Barrett, but Tony is content and ambivalent. After having worked for Tony a while, Barrett brings his 'sister' into service, who starts an affair with the master of the house.

When he realizes that Vera is not actually Barrett's sister and he starts to doubt the servants' loyalty, Tony throws them out. Some time later, however, he meets Barrett in a pub. He decides to take him on again. The two engage in foolish games (like hide and seek) and the tables turn with Barrett gradually wining the upper hand while Tony turns to drink.

Wonderfully acted by Dirk Bogarde and James Fox (both very handsome) with interesting symbolic shots aided by mirrors.

Great, great film.

9/10

The Twilight Zone: Five Characters in Search of an Exit

An army major wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings with no memory how he got there. Worse even, he doesn't know who or where he is. The room he is in has no doors or windows, the only light source coming from high above his head.

Almost immediately he encounters other characters in the same situation - a clown, a ballet dancer (moving mechanically), a hobo and a bag piper. The major starts questioning the situation and looking for a way out.

Rod Serling makes an ominous appearance, looking over the edge of the pit, talking to the camera, telling us,

"We will not end the nightmare, we will only explain it, because this is The Twilight Zone."

Everyone tries to make the major feel more comfortable, explaining that they all suffer from neither hunger nor thirst and tell him that his efforts to get out are futile. They have themselves tried every conceivable option long ago. The newcomer then concludes that they are in hell.

The only break in their eternal boredom is an occasional ringing of a bell, so loud it makes their surroundings shake and hurts their ears. In the end, the five turn out to be toys at the bottom of a bin, collected for poor children as Christmas presents.

6/10

Life of Pi

If any of the films recently released (and recently nominated for a heap of Academy Awards) deserves the description beautiful, this is the one.

Life of Pi tells the story of young Pi Patel, who leaves Pondicherry, India, together with his family and an entire zoo for Vancouver, Canada. When the freighter sinks in the vastness of the Pacific, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a hyena, an orang utan and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger.

The situation is as bad as it sounds and the boy immediately has to start his fight for survival - not only surviving the sea, but also the two carnivorous animals on board. The zebra is the first to go. Easy target that it is, the hyena sets upon it almost immediately. Next is the orang utan. The most furious kill, however, is of the hyena itself. Richard Parker finally makes an appearance jumping out from below the tarp cover to end the hyena's reign of terror - and making everyone in the cinema jump out of their seats. The rest of the story is of Pi and Richard Parker having to find some sort of arrangement in order for both of them to survive - the tiger needing the boys help to get food and water, the boy kept alert at all times by the tiger's presence.

The ocean setting is a feast for the eyes, thanks to the magic of the cinematography department and the technicians bringing the tiger to life. I wasn't that taken with the visuals of a film since Hero.

I read a few reviews that complained about the ending (the tiger's departure, the second - less adventurous but more credible - story version) but having read the book, I didn't really have to bother with that. If anyone wants to take issue, they have to take it with the book and/or its writer, Yann Martel. It has been too long since I read it for me to say that this or that detail was different. Overall the story was as I remember from the original text.

I recommend both, book and film.

9/10

Dr. No

The first of many, many James Bond films is Dr. No.

James Bond himself is played, of course, by Sean Connery. Obviously, this is the type of secret agent that defined similar characters for years to come. And this is what James Bond was to be like for a long time - right up to Daniel Craig, who was remodeled in the spirit of re-imagination that took place around the time. Before, it was not possible for a hero of his caliber (or Batman, or Spiderman, etc.) to show any signs of vulnerability. 007 is suave, cool and a ladies' man.

The first so-called Bond girl is Ursula Andress. Her name? Honey Ryder. The names of the Bond girls were persistantly ridiculous and put the female in her place. She is "Honey" as well as "honey" and not only needs saving, she also falls for the hero. She is introduced with the obligatory bikini shot.

The villain is Dr. No, a half-German, half-Chinese recluse, who is a member of SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion). SPECTRE becomes a theme throughout the series and - as we learn in later films - is headed by evil genius Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Dr. No, as well as several other Asian characters in the film, is played by caucasian actor, Joseph Wiseman. This was in a more innocent time, after all, before casting a white man in the role of an Asian man was being frowned upon.

The plot is straight-forward. Dr. No plans to interfere with the Project Mercury launch with his atomic-powered radio beam. He works from within a well-protected secret lair, filled with quite the art collection - including a Goya painting of the Duke of Wellington, that had been stolen in the year before the film came out and was only recovered in 1965.

Bond strolls through the Jamaican scenery while doging more than one attempt on his life, thanks to his driving skills, his natural suspiciousness and sheer luck. The tarantula scene had to be filmed with a stuntman, as Sean Connery suffers from Arachnophobia.

In the end, he single-handedly takes out Dr. No's entire operation and saves the dame.

5/10

Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf)

I have only recently started watching the brilliant works of Ingmar Bergman. Hour of the Wolf is only his third film I have watched, the others being The Seventh Seal and Through a Glass Darkly.

All three feature the wonderful Max von Sydow, who has worked with Bergman many times. In Hour of the Wolf he portrays the painter Johan Borg. Together with his pregnant wife Alma (played by Liv Ullmann) he spends the summer on a remote island. Over the course of the story he encounters several strange people that either contribute to his descent into madness or are a side effect of it. I assume it is the first, as Alma meets several of them at a dinner party.

This is defined as being drama and horror, the horror stemming from the feeling of claustrophobia the film conveys and Johan's nightmarish vision. The (English) title refers to the time just before dawn, during which many births and deaths occur (according to Johan).

The film is excellent, although for me it does not quite reach the brilliance of The Seventh Seal. My discovery of Ingmar Bergman will definitely not stop here.

7/10