June 23, 2008
When Mike (Josh Randall) and his girlfriend, Sheryl (Brianna Brown), go hiking in West Virginia, their idyllic getaway quickly turns into a nightmare they can't seem to wake from. Their choice to follow a less-traveled trail brings them face to face with a homicidal backwoods family with a creepy religious agenda. The next day, when Sheryl vanishes, Mike must comb the woods to find her, enduring a series of horrific events.
That is the basic plot for Timber Falls
This movie was so much better than I thought it would be, I just rented it because I love horror/slasher flicks, but it didn't disappoint at all.
It had a pretty intelligent story, pretty decent acting, and it moved at a pretty fast clip.
There wasn't a single moment you could turn away from the screen due to any type of boredom, it really kept you involved and paying close attention.
It has all of the elements that are lacking from other horror movies, and that you wish those other movies had, like the decent story and decent acting.
Our main characters, played by Randall and Brown, are two of the dumbest hikers ever though, they do one stupid thing after another in the beginning of the movie like taking a trail that they know is not patrolled by the park rangers, continuing on that same trail even after meeting up with some backwood rednecks that are far from helpful and nice, and Brown (the girlfriend Sheryl) is especially stupid for going for a morning swim in the lake by herself after the troubles they had just the day before.
The twisted backwood religious family, is absolutely crazy and sadistic, but absolutely totally enjoyable!
Their whole need for kidnapping young couples is because the wife, Ida, cannot carry a child of her own to term, and with the help of her husband and park ranger himself, Clyde, and her deformed by fire brother Deacon, they kidnap and force young healthy couples to have sex and conceive a child for Ida to raise as her own.
If the couple isn't married, Ida marries them in the eyes of the lord, and then forces them by horribly torturous means, to produce a child for her and her husband.
They (Sheryl and Mike) probably would have complied with the forced sex if maybe, just maybe, the religious freaks would have cleaned the blood off of Sheryl, and put her in something a little more enticing like a nicer nightie or some sort of sexy babydolls lingerie.
Blood and a white gown with a big ol' cross on it, isn't exactly sexually appealing.
Mike (Randall) endures the absolute worst of all the injuries and torture in this movie.
When he realizes Sheryl is gone, he goes running through the woods to find her, trips, and ends up with a stick stabbing him deep in his arm.
He removes it and ties a bandanna around it, only to run into the first group of rednecks again, and getting into a knife and gunfight where he's hit hard several times, and cut across one of his legs.
He survives that, only to step in a bear trap just a few minutes later.
He is "rescued" by Ida only to find out just a little later, that she is the captor of his girlfriend Sheryl.
He is whipped by cat o' 9 tails, branded with a branding iron, beaten, stabbed, hit about the head with the butt end of a shotgun, a shovel, fists, and finally a huge knife to the gut.
I don't want to tell you any more, I really think that if you are a fan of slashers and horror films, that this is one you should definitely rent because of how much slashing takes place, and because it's actually a very intelligent horror film.
I was very surprised at just how well the story was done, and I really think that if they had a bigger budget, some better cameras, and some A-list actors in the lead roles, that this movie could have done really great in theaters.
It was only released in 49 theaters nationwide.
I really believe that despite the above, that this is a really good movie, and it even left it open for a part 2, which I would definitely see.
It scored poorly on Rotten Tomatoes for some silly parts, (what horror movie doesn't have a few laughable scenes?) only having 1 "fair" review out of a total of 4 reviews, but ranks highly of the reviewers on Netflix, getting 3.5 stars out of 5.
It gets an "ok" rating and a pretty good review at BoxOffice.com, calling it "a perfectly serviceable scary movie."
On a scale of 1-5 stars, I give it a 4.5.
June 23, 2008
Sebastian and I decided to walk down and get us all some subs for lunch, and the going out of business Boogie Woogie cd, dvd, and video game store, is still open, and now everything is up to 75% off.
So we swung in to check and see if they had any more good deals.
All their used dvds are now another $3.50 off, so movies are super duper cheap.
I found buried amongst some truly horrible titles, the 1990 film Pump up the Volume
Anyone remember this one?
When a book on Lenny Bruce falls into the right young, disaffected, youthful hands, the FCC has its work cut out for it. Christian Slater plays a quiet high school student whose alter ego "Hard Harry" cries injustice and spins punk and rap records from his basement at night for a growing fan base who finds his radio frequency. When the ultra-conservative school administration starts swinging, Hard Harry's fans rally, and Slater gets the girl.
And unlike most teen movies of the 80's and 90's, there is no prom, there is no wrong side of the tracks love story with a super happy ending and pretty pink dress, this is teen rebellion with all it's angst and problems, from suicide, to coming out of the closet in a defining moment kind of way.
Instead of the usual stereotyping of being a fag, Hard Harry instead tells the young male caller how he finds the bravery of people to be amazing, and with that he signs off for the night leaving his listening fans to ponder the coming out confession and who they are as well.
The movie has it's absolutely silly moments as well, it's truly stupid in some parts, but hey, no movie is without it's flaws.
But Pump Up the Volume is a really decent flick and has an amazing soundtrack.
Liquid Jesus' anthem- Stand, to Chagall Guevera's Tale O' The Twister, and Concrete Blonde, Peter Murphy, The Pixies, Soundgarden and Sonic Youth.
The opening song that is played several times throughout the film, Everybody Knows, is done by both Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde in the film, yet Cohen's version is noticeably missing from the soundtrack
I prefer his version over the latter myself.
His voice is raw and real, and his version is slowed down a bit, allowing you to hear every word, and really get a feel for the meaning behind the lyrics.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
Anyway, it's a good a movie, on a scale of 1-5 stars, I give it a 3.5, and only that low because of some of the silliness.
I really think they could have left that out and had a truly remarkable teen rebellion film on their hands that was unlike every other teen movie past or present.
June 23, 2008
We watch a lot of movies here, the teens and I are huge fans of films, and they are so totally my kids.
They love horror movies as much as I do!
Tonight's dinner and a movie fest is a flick from 1982, and was based on the E.C. horror comics of the 1950's, Stephen King's Creepshow
The screenplay was written by King, and it was directed by George Romero.
There are 5 short films on the disc, Father's Day, The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, Something to Tide You Over, The Crate, and They're Creeping Up On You.
All of the actors of these short stories are very famous stars, Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, Ted Danson, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, E.G. Marshall, and as he always has done, even Stephen King himself makes an appearance in the starring role of Jordy Verill.
All of the stories are good, and even though the movie is 26 years old now, it still holds up pretty well.
For the time, 1982, the special effects were on par with all of Hollywood, they look completely out-dated now, of course, and in some of them like Father's day, totally cheesy, but one of them still scares the crap out of me to this day.
The Crate.
It's the longest one on the disc.
It stars Hal Holbrook as a sort of loser professor at a local college, whose wife is a horribly nasty woman.
"Billie" is played by Adrienne Barbeau, a drunk and offensive old hag, who makes his (Holbrook) life hell.
When a colleague of his finds a really old crate under the stairs at the college with a really hungry creature locked away inside that has eaten two people already, he finally finds a way to get rid of his verbally abusive and hated wife.
He lures her to the college on a made up story of a young co-ed being sexually assaulted by his colleague, telling her she's the only one who can coax the young girl out from under the stairs.
Once she gets down there, he stirs the monster awake, it devours her, and then he dumps the crate off a cliff into the ocean.
He and his colleague think it's all over, no evidence of any foul play, but the monster breaks free of it's crate under the sea in the very last scene.
This is also the bloodiest one of the five, and it's definitely the scariest.
I've seen Creepshow about a dozen or more times over the years, and it still doesn't disappoint as a fun movie.
June 7, 2008
Born with an acute sense of smell, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) resorts to dark deeds in creating a perfume that captures the essence of a woman in this 18th-century thriller based on Patrick Suskind's best-selling novel. The disturbing intensity mounts as Baroque-born Grenouille's obsession to create the ultimate scent moves from innovation to murderous aberration. Alan Rickman co-stars along with Dustin Hoffman as a master perfumer.
We watched Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
The story is so well done, the narration, the acting, and the period dress, everything about this movie is perfect.
It is rated R for "aberrant behavior involving nudity, violence, sexuality, and disturbing images", and yes, it deserves that rating, but wow, this is just such a great story.
It's disturbing and dark, Jean-Baptiste's obsession with capturing the scent of women as pure essence oils, and what he does to get them, is disturbing yet sensual.
He takes great care of their skin and hair, gentle touches to the skin, it's painful to him.
Each perfume is made up of a top note, a middle note, and a base note.
By adding just one more oil, you completely change the scent of the perfume, and Jean-Baptiste wants nothing more than to capture and save forever, the very essence, the souls, of women.
His obsession leads him to first try to get women to let him cover them in animal fat, wrap them in cloth, and then after a few hours, unwrap them and squeeze the fat into a pot mixed with alcohol to boil it, and have the liquid evaporate and rise to the top of the oil maker, where the essence oil will then drip down into a vial.
But the women think he's just some kind of kinky rapist, they don't understand, so they try to escape and he's left with no choice but to kill them in order to capture their scents.
I will not spoil this for any of you who may be interested in renting it from Netflix or your fave movie rental place, but it has a really great and sad ending, yet the perfect closing for the tale.
This really is a very interesting and captivating movie.
It held both the teens attention through the entire movie, a full 2 hours and 27 minutes, and when it was over, they said how much they liked it, and that I picked a really good one this time.
Haha! I pick a lot of good movies dammit!
June 7, 2008
I'm taking it easy and resting as much as I can, the new meds are starting to really help take the edge off the pain.
I'm able to sit up without having waves of pain tear through my shoulder and chest, but I'm still taking it easy and not moving too much.
But I got my two new movies in the mail from Netflix today, so that gave me an excuse to lay down and rest for 2 hours.
I rented Frontier(s)
As riots break out all over Paris after a right-wing government is elected, reluctant thief Yasmina (Karina Testa) recruits a few friends to exploit the bedlam by looting. With the police on their tail, the gang splits up and regroups at a hostel near the Luxembourg border to divide their haul. But the decision proves fateful when the innkeepers turn out to be neo-Nazi freaks who want to make Yasmina the brood mare for a new Aryan master race.
The movie is in French with English subtitles, but it's very easy to follow along.
That is if you are keeping your eyes open, or peeping through your fingers as they cover your face.
Frontier(s) was part of the 8 Films to Die For for 2008, but because of it's extreme gore and graphic imagery, the director was told to cut out a bunch of stuff in order to remain part of the horror fest, or go it alone and be rated NC-17.
The director loved his film, every single scene, so he chose to take the NC-17 rating, and be forced to a very limited theater release on May 9th, and then it went straight to dvd on May 13th, in the same full unrated, uncut, "sadistic glory" it was meant to be seen in.
I just got done watching it, and OMG, it is so graphic, so violent, and if I ever do get to travel to anywhere in Europe, I will never stay in a hostel, and I will definitely get myself some travel health insurance before I go just in case here are sickos at the normal hotels too.
Every single European movie I've seen in the last few years has had it's victims stay in hostels, and they all die horrible deaths save for one person, the sole surviving hero or heroine.
This movie was really good if you are a fan of gore and torture type movies.
If you loved the Hostel series, and enjoyed the graphic violence of High Tension, you'll like Frontier(s).
It's kind of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Hostel.
We have a seriously whacked out Neo-Nazi cannibalistic family, looking for a healthy young woman to breed new members of their pure blood family.
When Yasmine and her band of thieves make the terrible mistake of staying at the hostel, things quickly go wrong.
Each person gets picked off one by one in very gruesome ways.
A lot of the stuff is some of what you've seen before, but it's action packed, fast paced, and our heroine gets a bit crazy, as anyone would in this type of situation, and she makes it out alive in some very tough and bloody battles.
I won't tell you much more, but Yasmina is a likable character, you sympathize with her, you want her to survive and get out of there even if the cops she's running from are the only way to escape.
Anyway, it's a decent film, I can totally see why it's rated NC-17, it's really gory and graphic, but very good.
June 7, 2008
I rented the movie Teeth
I do love movies that throw those kinds of curves in.
As I was watching it and not knowing right away that it took place in Austin, I thought based on some of the locales used, that maybe they were near some Branson cabins or something.
It wasn't until about 30 minutes in that I realized they were in Texas.
Anyway, the movie is about a girl named Dawn who is at first, cursed with vagina dentata of mythology.
Many cultures believed in this, that some women had teeth down there, and it would take a hero to conquer them, breaking the teeth away, and thus making the girl into a woman.
It's the threat of sexual intercourse for men, they enter as proud men but leave diminished.
Dawn has these teeth, and at first, it is the most terrifying thing for her.
She's a young girl saving her virginity for marriage, but lust wins out and she ends up having sex with a boy who claimed he was also saving himself.
The fear of sex for Dawn causes the teeth to come forward and bite her lovers penis off.
He runs off into the woods and eventually dies.
Another young man wants to help her, or claims to really care for her, and during the act she learns he's only with her on a bet, and yup, buh bye penis.
She soon learns the power she has, she can control the teeth, she can freely have sex if she chooses, but if the man is using her, only wants her for the sex, doesn't really care for her, then out come the teeth.
The movie is so not for the squeamish, there are several truly gory moments, men will be clutching onto themselves and turning pale at they very idea of teeth in a vagina.
It was an interesting movie, I enjoyed it anyway. It's not OMG great, but quite humorous.
I loved the part where the pervert gyno was trying to cop a feel of Dawn and her first time in stirrups.
I actually yelled at the tv for him to stop being such a pig or he's going to get more than he's bargained for.
Like losing a few fingers.
Ha!
June 7, 2008
If you go here to NIN's site, you can get a link emailed to you to download NIN's new album, the Slip.
as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.
for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.
June 7, 2008
Reservation Road
A powerful human story of anger, revenge and great courage, this film takes you on an intense journey that follows two fathers as their families and lives converge after the events of one fateful night.The movie starts out introducing us to Ethan (Phoenix) and his wife, (Connelly) and their two kids, after his son performs in a music recital in the park. Then we are introduced to Dwight (Ruffalo) and his son Lucas attending a Red Sox game. As both families make their way home that evening, we flash back and forth between the two families on the screen until they come head to head. Ethan's daughter has to use the restroom so they stop at a gas station, his son gets out of the car to let the fireflies go that he caught earlier. Dwight is speeding, racing to get his son back to his furious ex-wife who called 10 times during the game, and is calling right now. The speed and the ringing cell phone cause Dwight to not pay attention for only a moment, and as he swerves to miss a collision with another car, he strikes and kills Ethan's son. He hesitates, he knows he hit something, but in a moment of panic, he drives off, a hit and run that leaves Ethan's son dead.
The film goes on to show how this accident and death, affects both men.
Ethan is devastated, angry, and wanting justice.
Dwight is afraid, filled with guilt, but terrified of turning himself in for fear of losing all of his custodial rights to his son.
It's a small town, and coincidence after coincidence, the story builds.
Dwight's ex-wife (Sorvino) was the son's music teacher and is now teaching Ethan's daughter piano.
Ethan, eager for justice, fearful the police aren't doing enough, hires a law firm to get private investigators and pursue a civil suit.
The law firm Dwight works at, and Dwight is placed in charge of his case.
As Ethan becomes more and more agitated that the police aren't doing enough to find the hit and run killer, he calls his attorney around the clock.
Ethan only recalls pieces of the accident, his memory is fuzzy, until the night of his daughter's recital a month and a half after the night his son was killed.
Dwight is at the recital too, his son Lucas is in it, and after it's over, he calls to his son which triggers the memory of the accident in Ethan.
The movie is very suspenseful, watching, waiting for either man to make his move.
Hoping Dwight turns himself in, hoping Ethan doesn't destroy his own life for revenge, justice in his mind.
This was an excellent movie, hard to watch in some places because the grief of losing a child is too much to bear, and both Phoenix and Connelly are so honest in their portrayal of grieving parents.
Ruffalo does an amazing job of a man wracked with guilt, you feel incredible pity for him even though you probably shouldn't. You feel as though you understand his reasons for not turning himself in, for not stopping, he suffers incredibly throughout the film wanting to say something but terrified of losing his son forever, a son he loves more than anything, just like Ethan loves his son.
It builds to a very dramatic ending for both men.
I would give it 7 out of 10 stars.
June 7, 2008
Tonight's Law and Order SVU was outstanding.
The episode is titled Authority, and stars Robin Williams.
Williams has won an Academy award, 6 Golden Globes, 2 SAGs, and a Grammy.
On tonights SVU, Williams plays Merrit Rook, an engineer who poses as a police officer to get managers at a fast food chain to detain and strip search young female employees, as well as other criminal acts perpetrated by phone.
He serves as his own lawyer and is found not guilty, which leads to publicity and followers from his anti-authority message.
No sheep.
Williams plays the role of Rook so very real, it's creepy.
He's a true psychopath.
He can impersonate people, he's very intelligent, and highly manipulative.
When he takes Detective Olivia Benson, things get even more intense.
Williams is a phenomenal actor.
No matter what type of role he plays, comedic, dramatic, or full on psycho, he plays it with incredible conviction.
This character was so believable, so frightening and pathological, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.
This was an incredible episode, Law and Order SVU never disappoints me with it's story lines and guest appearances.
It just keeps getting better and better.
