Pump Up the Volume (1990)

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 starring Christian Slater.
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.

The story line is a little more complicated than that little blurb though.
Slater is a young high school teen, who has moved to a new suburb in Arizona because his dad is the new school commissioner or some big named position, and he hasn't made any friends, and the school really sucks.
The principal has been slowly and systematically expelling students she feels are losers, yet keeping them on the student roster to be able to keep the government funds for "the good of the school."
The student body is disenchanted, and going through the motions just trying to please their parents and the teachers, and be whatever the adults in their lives tell them to be.
When Slater starts up his pirate radio show talking about how it all sucks and to just be who they are, be crazy, do what you want, speak out, and whatever they label you as, so be it, the students start feeling alive again.
After the call in of a young student who wants to commit suicide and then does, the school and police start trying to find out who Hard Harry is, and shut down his radio station.
What happens after that is that the students don't want to calm down, they don't want the radio show to end, and Hard Harry and the students keep fighting back in whatever ways they can.

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.

Creepshow (1982)

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.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

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 tonight, and it is absolutely fascinating.
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!

I will never stay in a hostel.

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) and Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer, but I just got done watching 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.

Teeth (2007)

I rented the movie Teeth from Netflix this past week because it's trailer was kinda funny, kinda bizarre, and kinda religious.
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!

Reservation Road (2007)

Reservation Road stars Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino.

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.

The Lookout (2007)

The Lookout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, Brick, Mysterious Skin) as Chris, a young man who had everything ahead of him--until a car accident killed two of his friends and left him with brain damage. Now reduced to being a janitor at a bank, Chris struggles to maintain some semblance of order in his life. When a guy he meets at a bar turns out to be an old classmate, Chris succumbs to his flattery, not suspecting that the guy's intentions are criminal.

It also stars Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher and Carla Gugino.

Chris (Gordon-Levitt) had everything going for him, hockey player adored by the fans, a beautiful girlfriend, great friends, and a loving family, until one night of stupidity.
He, his girlfriend, and 2 friends, were driving down the road, Chris at the wheel, and he wanted to show them how the fireflies light up the night.
He shut off his headlights as he drove down an old farm road, turning them back on too late to notice the large combine broke down on the side of the road.
His 2 friends died, his girlfriend's leg cut off, and he ended up with brain damage.

He has hardly any memories of that night, he can no longer get through the day without writing down what he's supposed to do, no immediate memory of events that just happened.
Everyday, he wakes up
takes a shower
with soap
gets dressed
eats breakfast
goes to the learning center
goes home
eats dinner
goes to work.
His life is a series of lists of what to do next.
Chris lives with Lewis, (Daniels) who is blind, and together they make a pretty good team, they cook, keep their home, and have plans to open a restaurant.

But a guy named Gary Spargo (Goode) meets up with Chris in a bar one night, and makes Chris believe they are friends, helps him get a girl, party, treat him as family, all to get Chris to help him and his friends rob the bank Chris works at.
Being so frustrated with his life, not being able to advance at work beyond janitor due to his brain injury, and having his parents pay his rent, his car insurance, everything for him, because no one thinks he can do it himself, Chris decides to help Gary rob the bank.
On the night it goes down however, Chris has a change of mind and tries to get out of it.

What happens for the rest of the movie is unpredictable, and suspenseful.
Chris uses his notebook to write down all the directions from Gary, 'he who has the money, has the power', what time, who does what, everything he's supposed to do in order, sequencing.
He also uses that notebook to get out of having to help with the robbery, and change his and Lewis' life.

Gordon-Levitt does a great job portraying Chris, Jeff Daniels is terrific as his blind room mate with a great insight into people.
This was just a really well done film, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of the things that struck me though, was how much Gordon-Levitt resembles the late Heath Ledger.
Maybe I'll be the only person to ever say that, but take a look at this side-by-side comparison I put together.
You can click for larger.

I am in no way comparing the acting abilities of either man, but if they were to ever make a film about Ledger, here's the perfect actor for the role.

Hard Candy (2006)

Hard Candy is the story of a smart, charming teenage girl, Hayley probably shouldn't be going to a local coffee shop to meet Jeff, a 30-something fashion photographer she met on the Internet. But before she knows it, she's mixing drinks at Jeff's place and stripping for an impromptu photo shoot. It's Jeff's lucky night. But Hayley isn't as innocent as she looks, and the night takes a turn when she begins to impose a hard-hitting investigation on Jeff in an attempt to reveal his possibly scandalous past.

It stars Ellen Page (Juno), Patrick Wilson, and Sandra Oh.

This movie was very controversial when it came out, a young girl meeting a much older man she met on the internet, for what he thinks will be a good time with a 14 year old girl.
Hayley however, is not quite so innocent. Everything she says to Jeff is carefully planned, she knows what to say to him to make him think he's going to be having sex with her at some point during their meet-up.
She has other plans, devious ones.
She psychologically tortures Jeff, ties him up, plans to castrate him, all in an attempt to get him to confess to kidnapping and raping another girl who is now missing.
This is at times, hard to watch, not because of the graphic scenes, but because the script was just lacking in a few places.
Page ends up acting terrified when her character is clearly in control, always had control, and so the mixed emotions she displays, come out all wrong.
The dialog is also very quiet. We had the volume all the way up and missed some of their lines no doubt.

The director also tries to hard too make twists and turns in the story as he goes. Up, down, over here, over there, wait, where were we going with this again?

Overall, the movie was gripping, suspenseful, and timely in this day and age of almost every teen on the planet, having an internet connection and myspace page.
I give it a 7 on a scale of 1-10.

Netflix subscribers get unlimited pc viewing.

http://netflix.com sent out emails to their customers who are subscribed to any plan greater than the 2 at a time for $4.99 deal, to let them know they now have unlimited on line pc viewing.

The pc viewing used to be based on what you paid, so if your plan was $16.99 a month, you had 17 hours of instant watch movie time available to you.
This new plan means you get unlimited hours of movie watching on your computer, and that is so awesome for people like me who can go through my mailed movies very quickly, and then have to wait for my next shipment.

This was done after the news that Apple iTunes movie rentals would start in February.
Steve Jobs says they currently have about 1,000 movie titles for users to buy and download.
iTunes store is a very direct competitor to Amazon Unbox, while iTunes and Netflix Watch It Now play to very different segments of the audience. Apple offers up mostly new releases, available 30 days after the DVD release, and you have to pay up before you can play. There's no subscription fee, though.

Netflix currently has over 6,000 watch it now titles available for instant viewing, and are adding more every day.

Surprisingly, Netflix and Blockbuster stock shares fell after the announcement from Apple.
Blockbuster shares tumbled 14% to $2.79 on volume of over 9 million. The issue's 30-day average volume is about 4.4 million shares. The stock hit a new 52-week low of $2.74 intraday.

Shares of Netflix fell 5.4% to $21.55 on volume of over 4 million. The issue's 30-day average volume is about 1.5 million.
But analysts say it's nothing to worry about as Apples iTunes movies will be more for people on the go, using their ipods to watch movies on their commute, and not watching them at home.

No show but the awards were still given.

Due to the writers strike and not being able to reach an agreement, the Golden Globes were canceled, but the winners were still announced in a press conference.
Here they are:

Best Motion Picture - Drama
Atonement

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Julie Christie – Away From Her

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood

Best Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Marion Cotillard – La Vie En Rose

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy
Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Cate Blanchett – I'm Not There

Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men

Best Animated Feature Film
Ratatouille

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (France, United States)

Best Director - Motion Picture
Julian Schnabel – The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
No Country For Old Men

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
Atonement
Composed by Dario Marianelli

Best Original Song - Motion Picture
"Guaranteed" – Into The Wild
Music & Lyrics By: Eddie Vedder

Best Television Series - Drama
Mad Men (AMC)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama
Glenn Close – Damages (FX NETWORK)

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama
Jon Hamm – Mad Men (AMC)

Best Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Extras (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Tina Fey – 30 Rock (NBC)

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
David Duchovny – Californication (SHOWTIME)

Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television
Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Queen Latifah – Life Support (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Jim Broadbent – Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Samantha Morton – Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Jeremy Piven – Entourage (HBO)

I have several reviews to get written up.

I've done quite a bit of Netflix renting, and have to get some time to sit down and write up the reviews of the movies we've been watching.

We've watched Pirates of the Caribbean, at World's End, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Simpsons Movie, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2007, Live Free or Die Hard, and Fast Food Nation is sitting ready to be watched tonight.

Yup, that's quite a few movies I have some thoughts on, and I will get to these as quickly as possible.
Not that my opinion really counts for much, I don't promote this blog much at all, it's just like a hobby log of mine to discuss entertainment stuff.
I love music and movies, I'm really starting to get into celeb gossip lately, and we've gotten quite a few new video games I also need to get written up.
You would think with my wicked insomnia last night, (still haven't slept) that I could have pumped a few of these out.
I didn't, but I will, and very soon.

The first 6 minutes of the Dark Knight.

Here is the bank heist scene, the first full 6 minutes of the Dark Knight.
It's a cam recording, taken before the I am Legend viewings at IMAX over the weekend.
Regular theaters were shown the other trailer.
This movie is looking better and better with every new clip I see.

Knocked up (2007)

Knocked Up stars : Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Joanna Kerns, Loudon Wainwright III, Harold Ramis, and Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Siegel, and Martin Starr.

Alison (Heigl) and Ben (Seth Rogan) have a one night stand and she ends up pregnant.
That's the basis of the movie, and what follows are some hilariously funny scenes, and some very serious and emotional ones as well.
Neither Alison or Ben wanted or were prepared for parenthood, but they both stood up to their responsibilities as best as they could.

Ben was so charming and sweet in this movie. The character played by Rogan, was just so sweet and tried his hardest to be there and support Alison throughout the pregnancy despite the fact that he had no job and loved to be lazy, watch porn, and smoke dope.
I really felt like Ben was an awesome guy.
All he wanted was to be there, be a father, and do the best he could.
When he proposed, I felt all mushy inside, I almost teared up. The character was just great.

Alison (Heigl) didn't really "pop" off the screen, but she did ok. It was hard to believe she was pregnant because she didn't get fat anywhere but in the belly. No face, no thighs or ass, just belly.
Real women get big Hollywood, get it right.
But she portrayed Alison pretty well. You could relate to her insecurities over whether or not Ben would truly step up, whether or not she could do this.
I was really happy with the ending of the movie, it was nice to see they stayed together.

This movie was hysterical in places thanks to the awesome supporting cast.
We laughed pretty much the whole way through, it was really funny.
If you missed it in theaters, do yourself a favor and rent or buy it, you won't be disappointed at all.

Opening credit sequence for Sweeny Todd.

Fans of Tim Burton films know that the opening credit sequences for his films are always unique and exciting.
Thanks to Broadway World, you can now watch the opening sequence.
Check this out!

Sex and the city (2008)

Coming this May, the Sex and the City movie will hit theaters.
They trailer has just been released.
Are you excited?

The Girl nex Door (2007)

The Girl Next Door is NOT the one starring Elisha Cuthbert, but a movie based upon the true life events as written by Jack Ketchum in the book of the same name, The Girl Next Door.

Ketchum fictionalizes true life crime stories, and this book and movie are based on the following true story.
"In 1960's Indiana, Sylvia Likens and her little sister moved in with Gertrude Baniszewski while their parents went out of town. Baniszewski, her children, and several neighborhood children tortured and eventually murdered Likens over a period of months. At the trial, the children involved in the crime got off with an insignificant punishment, leading to outbursts of rage among the community and anyone with an ounce of moral fiber. In what must surely rank as one of our justice system's lowest moments, Gertrude herself was eventually released from prison, dying peacefully several years later somewhere in Iowa. This case serves as the loose outline for Ketchum's diabolical novel."

Like several of the reviewers, I had no idea what I was walking into. I had not known about the true life crime it was based upon, only that Netflix has it listed under thriller, says the girls suffer unthinkable abuse at the hands of their Aunt Ruthie and her 3 sons.
I had absolutely no idea what I had rented. I figured creepy story, the girls would be made house cleaning slaves, beaten, maybe eventually murdered.
I was not prepared for the very graphic horror I saw on my screen.
This movie is not for the faint of heart.
I am someone who can watch horror movies 24 hours a day, slashers, Freddy, Jason, all of those big bad meanies, this was so much worse, so much more terror than I was ready for.

Blanche Baker who portrays the evil Aunt Ruth Chandler, no I should say, the sadistic, severely mental Aunt Ruth, portrayed this character so well, I hated her. I wanted to reach through my screen and slap her, kill her myself.
What she put Meg through, the torture, the sexual abuse and mutilation, what she put her 3 sons through convincing them to help her, the other children in the neighborhood who all helped beat, rape, and torture Meg, was just so cruel, the darkest part of human nature I have ever seen in a movie.
I watch a lot of horror films, I've seen characters die in the most horrific ways, but this has left me shaken to the core still 2 hours after finishing watching it.
I sat here with my mouth agape for the entire movie after reading the words on the screen that said this was based on true events, just saying no over and over again.

The prologue of the movie, we see David, a grown man sitting at a table looking at a water color, narrating the beginning of his story.
He says, "When my second wife was 19, she got in between a couple of fighting cats, and one of them went at her--climbed her like a tree, tore gashes out of her thighs and breasts and belly that you can still see today. She got 30 stitches and a fever that lasted for days. My second wife says, 'That's pain.' She doesn't know fucking pain, that woman."
He wasn't minimizing her pain, but indeed, she truly didn't know pain.
What Meg suffered was some of the most graphic, without actually showing us, pain I have ever seen inflicted on a character ever.

I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, no, not everyone will be able to watch this, it is truly a dark film, a sad and frightening story of a woman with mental illness who pushed her illness on her own children and her nieces who she was left to care for.
It is a brutal film, very hard to watch, I covered my mouth, my eyes, I cried out no several times.
But in all of it's horror, all of it's darkness, it was an incredible film. The young actors who starred did incredible jobs, Baker was chilling, and Blythe Auffarth who played Meg, deserves an Oscar for her performance.
Truly an amazing film, but not for everyone.

I know who killed me (2007)

I Know Who Killed Me is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

It stars Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond and Neal McDonough, and a bunch of mostly unknown supporting actors.

Synopsis:

Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan) was living the small town life, until the day she was abducted by a sadistic killer. After a frantic search, Aubrey turns up alive, but changed. She is missing limbs, but has gained a new personality - that of bad girl Dakota Moss. Her parents and the FBI think she’s suffering from delusions, but if Dakota is just a trick of her mind, why do strange wounds keep appearing on her body? Desperate and alone, Aubrey must now unlock family secrets to unmask a mysterious killer with a deadly obsession.

Seriously, I find it almost impossible to even write this review it was so bad.
There was so much shifting going on between characters, back and forth in time, between them, semi-acid trippy visuals, stigmata references, and really bad acting.

Save your money, don't buy this one, don't even rent it. It's not worth it at all.
Complete and utter fucking trash.

Oh, who did it?
The piano teacher in what has to be the lamest killer plot I've ever seen.
What the fuck was with all the prosthetic legs?

Bad movies rule.

Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.
Arriving in tomorrow's mail from Netflix, are 2 movies that critics and viewers alike have said sucked.
Skinwalkers and Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me.

I don't know why I chose these 2, but I'll watch them and report back.
Most movie reviewers don't know which was worse for Lohan's movie, the script or her acting, but I'll attempt to figure it out.
Maybe it will be both.

New Cloverfield trailer. Looking bad ass

Check this out!
What the fuck is that?!

Get More CloverField Trailers at TerrorFeed.com

Ratatouille (2007)

I can't recall the last time I watched a children's movie that was actually good for children.
Until tonight.

We just finished watching Ratatouille, and I do believe that this is one of the best children's movies, heck, one of the best movies, I have seen in a few years.
It has an amazing all-star cast, including Peter O'Toole as the famous food critic Anton Ego, Brad Garrett as Gusteau, and Patton Oswalt as Remy, who is probably most famous for his role as Spence on King of Queens.

Ratatouille is the story of a young rat named Remy who has a natural gift for finding good food. He can smell if it's fresh, he can smell if it's been poisoned by the humans, and his father employs him as the colonies poison checker due to his incredible gift with food.
After the colony had been found and the rats fled, Remy is separated from his family and friends, and finds himself in Paris at the restaurant of the famous chef he admired and wanted to be like.

He ends up helping another young man struggling to find his way, Linguini, who turns out to be the son and rightful owner of the restaurant.
The two of them help each other, Remy helping Linguini keep his job by helping him cook, and Linguini helping Remy to trust humans and fulfill his dream of being a chef.

But this movie is so much more than that.
Right from the start, there are moral and ethical lessons being taught.
Do not steal, do not take credit for something that isn't yours, treat people right, and to follow your heart and your dreams to be whatever you want to be.

I was very impressed with Ratatouille right from the start.
Pixar has once again outdone themselves with their brilliant animation.
When the above scene shown on my tv screen, I oohed and ahhed at the gorgeous view Linguini had of Paris from his very small and poor apartment.
He lived in what amounted to a dumpy cheap apartment, but that view, man, that view was stunning.
To be cramped up in there with that kind of view, would have been worth so much.
But it was the story, the story telling, and the lessons, that were an absolute joy to watch unfold on the screen.
This is the type of children's movie studios should be making.

In our current world condition, wars over everything, political correctness, back stabbing, stealing from large corporations and leaving people with nothing, people taking credit for others works, this movie teaches all the right lessons in a way that children can understand.
It would be great if adults watched it too.
I think people have forgotten that we are in this big old mess together, and we must rely on each other, help one another, and be good people to one another.
It wasn't a heavy handed message at all, but it was there loud and clear.
There were a few moments I gasped at the way each lesson unfolded, and I made a head nod motion toward my tv screen, and said yes, so right.

This is seriously one of the best movies I have seen in years.
I will be adding it to my movie collection even though my sons are grown, it is a must have.
It was beautiful, stunning actually, and left me shaken inside and inspired to keep on going, to keep on striving, because anyone can be who and what they want if they just do it.

Anyone can cook, the motto of the famous French chef Gusteau, and indeed, anyone can be something.

Major movie suckage.

This looks like the worst movie ever.
Wow.
I watched this twice, and I still am amazed this movie even got made.
What movie am I talking about?
Major Movie Star, starring Jessica Simpson.
Watch this and place your bets on how soon this will be on DVD.
I don't even think it will hit theaters, this looks straight to DVD to me!

Hostel Part II (2007)

On Halloween night, we also watched Hostel - Part II.
Synopsis:

Three female college students take a detour from their partying, enticed by a beautiful European woman who promises seclusion, safety and maybe even romance. What they get is a living hell where they are sold to the highest bidder who's fondest wish is to kill them slowly. Hostel 2 also follows 2 American men who, on the flip side of the coin, are willing to pay to join an exclusive club where a life will end at their hands...any way they like. It's a story of human monsters and the almighty dollar as only Eli Roth could tell it.

Hostel Part II stars Bijou Phillips, Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, Roger Bart, and Richard Burgi.

The Two American men are brothers (Bart and Burgi) and they have paid to join the club of people who outbid each other to be able to kill a person any way they want to.
There was also a woman who outbid several other people, in order to kill one of the girls too.
She ends up taking the life of our first college girl victim, Lorna, played by Matarazzo.
Lorna dies a very slow at first, torturous death.

This leaves Beth (German) and Whitney (Phillips) to be killed.
Burgi picks Whitney and is so excited through the entire movie, right up until it's time to actually do the deed.
He wants to kill, believes it will give him power, that people will just sense he's a dangerous man and never fuck with him again.
Bart gets Beth and through the whole movie, he's squeamish and unsure if this is what he wants to do, the total opposite of his brother.
But when it comes time to actually kill, Burgi can't go through with it after his first cut into Whitney.
He makes a mistake with a hand saw, and refuses to fulfill the contract he signed.
The contract states that if you go in the room, you must kill the person inside it.
Breach of contract means death for you, and Burgi meets his end at the hand of a pack of flesh loving dogs.

Bart who at first seems like he wants to help Beth get free, is actually just playing a game with her, making it seem like help, kindness, and then he turns into the monster he really is, the killer his brother couldn't be.
But Beth gets the upper hand and gets away.

It was a great twist to her character, to the whole movie, to have her be able to go free.
I won't tell you and ruin it in case you want to check it out, but I laughed my ass off when she was able to leave.

A warning to the guys who may want to watch this. You might want to have a few drinks and wear a cup.
There's a scene with a penis and some cutters that will have you clutching your balls and crying for your mommy.

I really enjoyed this one. Slightly less violent and less bloody than the first Hostel, but had a better story, we learned more about our characters and more about the club that that killers want to join.
Scale of 1 to 5, I give Hostel Part II a 4.

Fido (2006)

I rented a couple movies from Netflix for our Halloween in, and so last night and again this morning, we watched Fido.

Synopsis:

Timmy Robinson's best friend in the whole wide world is a six-foot tall rotting zombie named Fido. But when FIDO eats the next-door neighbor, Mom and Dad hit the roof, and Timmy has to go to the ends of the earth to keep Fido a part of the family. A boy-and-his-dog movie for grown ups, "FIDO" will rip your heart out.

Fido stars Carrie-Ann Moss, Billy Connolly as Fido, Dylan Baker, Henry Czerny, and K'Sun Ray as Timmy.

Fido is about all the living dead, the zombies, who after the great zombie war in the 1950's, are now either used as pets or servants like mailmen, milkmen, and gardeners, those types of jobs, and controlled through the use of a special collar created by Zombcom.
Some other zombies which could not be used, are in the areas known as the wild. Each town is fenced off from the wild, and basically each other.
People who screw up and set their zombies free by choice or accident, are sometimes punished by being dumped into the wild where the flesh eating zombies run free.

Timmy Robinson and his parents, finally get a servant zombie of their own even though Timmy's father Bill Robinson hates them because during the war, he was just a kid and had to kill his zombified grandfather.
He is still afraid of them.
But they finally get their own zombie and Timmy names him Fido.
During a game of catch, Fido's collar is accidentally shut off by the walker of a neighbor, Mrs. Henderson.
Then he eats her.
Then she becomes a zombie and bites someone else.
Timmy tries to stop it all, but can't, and pretty soon the town has a wild zombie problem again.

This is a hysterically funny movie. It's very dark humor though, not everyone will laugh.
It has a rating of 4 stars on Amazon, and some pretty decent reviews.
This isn't your typical zombie movie though, but if you are a fan of zombie flicks, it's worth checking out.
You can check out the trailer, and then rent it.
It's totally worth it.

The Reaping (2007)

The Reaping is described as follows;

The death of a child in mysterious circumstances; sparks of a series of events that seem to represent biblical plagues, start occurring in of all places a town called *Haven* located deep in the bowels of bible belt country in the bayous of Louisiana. A former Christian missionary turned religious phenomena debunker and her top open minded student turned personnel assistant is sent to investigate.

I really had high hopes for this movie. I thought Katherine (Hillary Swank) would stick to her guns and debunk this too, but as soon as the satanic cult was mentioned, in the last 40 minutes of the movie, I knew all hope was lost for being able to stick to science to explain what was happening in the town.

Katherine is a former missionary and ordained minister, whose husband and daughter were sacrificed by the native people they had been preaching to, because as soon as the missionaries arrived, it didn't rain again. For a whole year.
The native people killed her family and had tried to kill her, in order to please the gods.
Since then, Katherine has lost her faith and now goes around debunking "miracles".

She gets a request to come to the small town of Haven because the river has turned to blood, the fish and frogs are dying, and while she's there, there's a plague of boils and locusts, cattle die and become crazy rabid attack cows.
The townspeople have Katherine believe it's the work of a little 12 year old girl just entering puberty, who is the cause of all the bad happenings, that she's in league with satan.
Katherine tries to explain things through science, runs tests, does everything she can until she sees a symbol for a cult.
She then calls a former priest friend, who just so happens to get burned to death while telling Katherine of the prophecies while speaking to her by phone, and she starts to believe the girl is indeed in league with the devil.

But it was the townspeople who had lied, they were the satanic cult who wanted to kill the girl but couldn't, because the girl was actually an angel sent by god to destroy the cult members.
The last plague is the death of the first borns, and most of the towns people end up dead, and Katherine helps save the girls life because she figures out that the girl is sent from God.
This whole experience changes her, restores her faith.
As she and the girl drive away from town, the girl places her hand on Katherine's belly and tell her she's pregnant with a boy.
Katherine had only thought she dreamed of having sex with the satanic cult leader, he needed to create another child apparently, and chose Katherine as the host mother for the devils new spawn.

This movie is bad. Just bad.
It was a terrible disappointment to see Katherine lose science so quickly in the face of things she normally would have proven false with science.
The dream of having sex, the pregnancy, bah, stupid.
I will say the movie had excellent special affects.
The plague of locusts was visually stunning, but this movie sucked ass.
If I had those little stars to do a scale of 1-5, this movie would get a 1 for special effects, and that's it.
It sucked.

Guess the movie #4, final clue.

You need to name the movie, the year, the male lead, and the song that played a major part in order to get the 4 points.

Annnnd, go!

Carla guessed it correctly and about 30 seconds later, so did Lady Draven.
I guess this final clue was the dead give away!

Sweeny Todd: The Demom Barber of Fleet Street

From director Tim Burton, we have Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall.

Synopsis:

Story about a grisly revenge by Benjamin Barker, a man unjustly imprisoned by a lecherous judge. Barker returns as barber Sweeney Todd and exacts revenge.

Trailer on Yahoo

R for graphic bloody violence

Guess the movie 3 winner!

Carla from My Little Tribe, guessed correctly that it is Six Degrees of Separation, 1993, and it's lead actors were Will Smith and Donald Sutherland.
Congrats Carla! You're earned 4 points!

One of the greatest movie monologues ever, came from this movie.
In this scene below, Will Smith's character, Paul, talks about the book Catcher in the Rye.

Film synopsis:
"In New York, the art dealers John Flanders ('Flan') Kittredge and Louisa ('Ouisa') Kittredge are ready to have a business dinner with their South African friend and client Geoffrey Miller, when a wounded young black man comes to their fancy apartment telling that he had been just robbed in Central Park and asking for help. He introduces himself as Paul, a friend of their son and daughter in Harvard and son of Sidney Poitier, and the couple invites him to stay with them. During they night, they find that Paul is not who he claims to be. When they investigate the life of Paul, they find the hidden truth."

Guess the movie #3, clue #2

Here is the second and final clue for this round.
Can you guess the movie?

We have a winner!

Brian, who is blog-less, guessed correctly on the Guess the movie #1 entry below, and now has 3 points towards winning the monthly prize of $25!

Not only did he guess it correct and give me the year and 1 actor, he had all the movies information, and he quoted the scene;

all wrong.

Stand By Me

Corey Feldman
River Phoenix
Jerry OConnell
Wil Wheaton

1986

"By the time he was eating his sixth pie, Lardass began to imagine that he wasn't eating pies, he pretended he was eating cowflops and rat guts in blueberry-sauce"

one of my top 5

Congrats Brian!
Don't forget to come here and check again in a few days, for Guess the movie #2!

Guess the movie #1?

Can you guess the name of this movie from this screen cap?
I'm going to start a monthly contest here at Twisted, called guess the movie, and only use screen caps.
I will post 10 images per month, and the person who guesses the most correct movies out of the 10 per month, will win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com, or $25 by Paypal, winners choice.

Each correct guess is worth 1 point, first person to guess correctly, will get the point.
The contest will run from the 26th of the month, to the 26th of the following month, points will be tallied, and the winner will receive their $25 gift certificate or $25 through Paypal, on the 30th of the month.
Let's get this started.

This may be too easy. So what movie is it?
2 bonus points will be added to your total, if you know the year and can name at least one of the starring actors.
One additional screen cap is below. These are the only clues you will get.

*EDIT*
I added a wee bit more to the main screen cap, which I had cut in half. Perhaps this really easy one to me, was made too hard by cutting the picture too much.

Edit #2**
Comments are now closed due to having a winner!

The Story Never Ends �

Stuntman dies filming of The Dark Knight (2008)

Source

09/25/2007-
A special effects technician on the new Batman movie has been killed after a 4x4 truck hit a tree.
The man died when the vehicle, which was carrying a camera platform, crashed on a test run while following a stunt vehicle, which is thought to have been the Batmobile.
Emergency services were called to Longcross, near Chertsey in Surrey, but the man was pronounced dead.

A Warner Bros spokeswoman said no actors were involved, and the accident did not happen on set or while filming was taking place.

She said: "Warner Bros Pictures and the entire cast and crew of The Dark Knight are deeply saddened by this tragedy and their hearts and prayers go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased."
Police and the Health & Safety Executive have launched a joint investigation.

A HSE spokesman confirmed two vehicles had been involved in a "filming production exercise" when the crash happened.

He said: "It appears one vehicle was undertaking some stunt driving and another 4x4 provided the camera platform to film it.
The second vehicle and a camera operator were involved in a collision with a tree."

Breach (2007)

Breach is based on the true story of the 25 year long career, of Agent Robert Hanssen.

It stars Laura Linney, Ryan Phillipe, and Chris Cooper as Hanssen.

FBI agent Robert Hanssen spent over 20 years selling government secrets to the Russians, making him the most egregious traitor in U.S. history. He was an Opus Dei Catholic and a devout churchgoer who was also a sexual deviant, a straitlaced company man so trusted by his employers that they once appointed him to lead an investigation designed to reveal who the spy was--when in fact it was Hanssen himself. And in the end, he was brought down in part by 26-year-old Eric O'Neill, an agent-in-training who worked with him for just two months.

Chris Cooper does an amazing job portraying Agent Hanssen. I have loved him in other roles such as the closeted homosexual father in American Beauty, and Adaptation for which he won a 2003 best supporting Oscar.

Even though this is a true story and we already know how it ends, the film was captivating and intriguing.
To see how good at his job Hanssen was, to know he was in charge of catching the mole, and he was the mole, is startling.
He was a spy selling secrets to the Russians for over 20 years, costing the United States countless secrets. He was a sexual deviant, taping he and his wife having rough sex, and mailing the tapes to others.
He was a devout Catholic and family man, by all accounts he was a perfect husband, father, and grandfather. He was an employee so trusted by his FBI supervisors, they kept promoting him to the top of bigger and better cases, and even the head of the very case for which he was eventually caught.

If you enjoy spy stories, and seeing how catching the biggest traitor in U.S. history, then watch this movie.
It was done exceptionally well.

The Hitcher 2007

The Hitcher, 2007, stars Sean Bean and Neal McDonough, most notable, but the other stars aren't recognizable to me.

This is a remake of the cult classic starring C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer, and frankly, they should have left it alone, as is my feeling with most remakes.

Product Description:

A road trip takes a deadly turn in this terrifying thriller about a young couple (Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton) tormented by a psychotic hitchhiker (Sean Bean) who forces them to face their fears head-on. The open road becomes a battleground of blood and metal in the race to reveal the chilling truth about this relentless killer. No one knows who he is, what he's after, or how to stop this "truly twisted villain". Watch the madness unfold with intense edge-of-your-seat chase sequences drive this sinister film to a deadly ending you won't soon forget!

No, it's forgettable.
Those edge of your seat chase sequences? Lame.
The hitchhiker forcing them to face their fears? Not quite. He's just a demented fuck with no rhyme or reason to his killing.

He kills everybody he comes in contact with including a police station with 2 heavily armed cops. The movie offers no explanation how he pulled that off.
The way he shoots up all the police cars in the only really big chase scene, was just impossible. It was not believable at all, how a guy with a PISTOL, was able to kill 6 officers in cars, and take out a helicopter police unit.

The ending was lame too.
Our one and only decent cop is killed far too easy, and our stupid, whiny, starring girlfriend, takes the bad guy out with a police rifle after not firing a gun once during the whole movie, she doesn't even like them, but she somehow managed a perfect shot to the kneecap, and then a head shot kill with one hand.
Yeah, like that's believable.

Don't even waste your money or your Netflix seeing this one.

Alien vs Predator - Requiem

Holy shit, this looks bad ass!
So much better than that gay pyramid buried under teh Arctic circle crappy movie they put out.

Death Sentence starring Kevin Bacon.

Death Sentence comes out on August 31st, and is looking to be incredibly bad ass.

Synopsis: Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night when he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no lentgh is too great when it comes to protecting his family.

It stars Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, John Goodman, Aisha Tyler, Stuart Lafferty, Garret Hedlund, Matt O'Leary, and Leigh Whannell.

You can watch the trailer and clips on the site, it looks really good.
I have always been a fan of Kevin Bacon.
He's starred in over 60 movies including Animal House, Footloose, She's Having a Baby, Tremors, Flatliners, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River and The Woodsman.
His tv credits are just as long with over 70 appearances.
He has had and continues to have, an amazing career as one of the most well known and respected actors in the industry.
He has always, always, been a favorite actor of mine.
Mystic River was outstanding, The Woodsman, was a very controversial film, but what an incredible performance he gave.
He doesn't just play his part, he becomes his character no matter what role it is.

Death Sentence is a film that looks be an emotional roller coaster, digging down into the depths of a man, and just how far that man would go to avenge his son's death, and protect the rest of his family.

Black Snake Moan (2007)

Black Snake Moan stars Samuel L. Jackson as Lazarus, a man who has lost his wife to his own brother. Broken down and bitter, he finds Rae, played by Christina Ricci, on the side of the road near his house, broken down, beat down, and filled with the "itch."

The itch is a sickness, it drives her crazy, sex crazy. She was abused in horrible ways as a child and by men all her life. The pain starts in her head where the memories are, and it works it's way down her body. The only thing that has ever made the pain go away is sex. It releases her from the nightmarish memories that haunt her.

Rae lives with her boyfriend Ronny, played by Justin Timberlake, who wants to be a soldier and heads off for basic.
Ronny suffers severe anxiety attacks, and is eventually sent home.
But while he's away, Rae can't handle it on her own, Ronny used to be able to calm her down so she didn't go crazy with the itch, and go out looking for sex.
Rae used to help Ronny with his panic attacks, they were good for each other.
So while he's gone, Rae goes out and parties, tries to find peace, and what she finds is Ronny's best friend who abuses her and uses her, just like pretty much every other man she's ever known.

Lazarus finds her after this, and first heals her wounds and her nasty bad cough, then he aims to cure her of her evil ways.
He chains her to his heating radiator.
He cannot be moved on this.
He believes God has set Rae in his path for a reason.
Turns out, they were both set in each other's path.

This is the kind of movie you go in thinking it's going to be one kind of movie, and you come out realizing you just saw something else.
You see Lazarus and Rae help heal each other, and then Lazarus with the help of his preacher friend and some good ol' blues, help heal Rae and Ronny's nearly broken relationship.

There is some incredible blues on the soundtrack. I mean just downright soulful blues, the kind that hits your core.

Over all, this is a very decent movie, definitely not recommended for anyone under age 16 in my opinion. It starts with Rae and Ronny having sex, that is the opening scene.
There's bad language, graphic sex and violence, not a kids movie, and not for the faint of heart.

But there is a beautiful message in this film of love, forgiveness, and redemption.
They all help each other find their place of peace, and they all are able to move on with their lives and let the bitterness go.
For Lazarus, that means he lets his hatred of his ex-wife and brother go, and opens up his heart again to find love.
For Ronny and Rae, they belong together, they fix one another when they each need comfort that only the other can bring them.

Deliver us from evil

Tonight, the teens and I watched Deliver Us from Evil.
Film synopsis:
Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O'Grady quickly won each congregation's trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O'Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O'Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered.
________________

I told the teens going in, if they got bored or uncomfortable, we could shut it off, or they could go play games in the other room.
At first, they were bored at the idea of a documentary, but as soon as Father O' Grady started discussing his crimes against children in such a matter of fact way, they became intrigued by the film.

It was heartbreaking to watch for sure.
We sat riveted to each family tell the story of how they came to know Fr. Oliver, and how they trusted this priest with their lives, their families, and welcomed him into their homes to stay with them.
They all believed he was a good, honest priest, who could be trusted.
As their stories unfolded, it became clear he had abused their trust, the trust of his parish's, and mostly, all of their children.
The most heartbreaking moment is when the mother and father of one of the victims, retold the story of the day they found out their then 5 year old daughter at the time of the molestation, now in her 30's, and how that moment impacted their lives.
The father was so torn up, full of anger, rage and guilt.
He blamed himself for allowing Fr. O' Grady into their home, let him spend the night, and while they slept, he molested their 5 year old daughter.

His molestation wasn't aimed at just boys, but boys and girls alike.
They estimate Fr. Oliver's victims range in the 100's from the 30 years he remained, and was shuffled around, as a Catholic priest.

The documentary doesn't just take aim at O' Grady, but at the entire Catholic church from the diocese in LA where O' Grady was serving under, all the way to the Vatican in Rome.
The families, film maker, and one priest, Fr. Thomas Doyle, all believe that the Catholic church knew O' Grady was a pedophile, molesting children at every parish they moved him to, and covering up his crimes.
The Catholic church has paid out over $1billion dollars in lawyer and settlement fees, in regards to children being molested by their clergy.

There are never been seen before depositions from LA Cardinal Roger Mahoney, and Monsignor Cain, where they discussed the file the Catholic church had kept on O' Grady, and other Catholic priests.
They knew he had been taking advantage of mothers and fathers in order to get to their children, and raping and sodomizing those children since 1973, with the full knowledge of his Catholic superiors.
If a report from a family came in, they hushed them, and then moved O' Grady to a new parish less than 100 miles away from his last victims.

On the official site, you can view the trailer, and a national map of all the states abuse by clergy has been reported in.

The most amazing thing about this documentary, is that Father O' Grady agreed to it. He agreed to be filmed, and confess all of his sins.
It is a look inside the mind of a pedophile priest, his arousal triggers, his tellings of what he did to his victims, and how the Catholic church helped him avoid prosecution for 30 years.

This is an amazing documentary, but agreeably not for everyone. It contains graphic recollections from the victims, and graphic recollection from O' Grady himself.
I would highly recommend people watch it though.
It is not light fare, it's hard to stomach the details, but it makes you incredibly angry at the church for covering it up for so long.
And as the end credits rolled, it gives another reason for anti-Bush supporters to hate him.

President GW Bush, gave Pope Benedict XVI a free pass. He can never be convicted in the United States for the role he played in covering up not only Fr. O' Grady's crimes against children, but all the other Catholic priests the Vatican helped cover up, as well as while he worked as a close associate to the late Pope John Paul II.

The Number 23

The Number 23 is an ok film.
I won't even bother reposting the editorial comment from Amazon, because they slammed it pretty hard.
I found the film interesting. Sure, it could have been done a whole lot better, but it was alright.

Was Carrey a convincing schizophrenic murderer?
Yes and no.
I think people are so used to him being funny, that any role outside of the norm for him is looked at with an eye of total disbelief.
I think people would rather he be funny.
I thought he did ok. Not totally convincing, but believable to a point.

It's an interesting concept though.
Carrey plays Walter Sparrow who becomes obsessed with the number 23 after his wife gives him a book for his birthday.
Unbeknown to the both of them, this is the actual suicide/confessional of Sparrow from 13 years previous when he killed his lover and then attempted to commit suicide.
It was a failed attempt leaving him brain damaged, but his confessional was found by the police with names changed, so police and doctors did not realize it was the actual confession for killing his girlfriend.
A doctor at the mental health institution reads the confessional, and he then becomes obsessed with the number 23, but publishes the book under an assumed name.
Then Walter's wife finds it, gives it to him, he reads it and slowly starts piecing the numbers together until he becomes manically obsessed with the number all over again, and ultimately remembering his nasty deed.

It was an alright film, interesting to watch the numbers add up.

Re-animator

Re-Animator from 1985, is a classic, classic horror movie.
What should have been frightening, turned out to be a major laugh fest.

Stuart Gordon's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West: Re-Animator puts a Night of the Living Dead spin on the classic Frankenstein story. Jeffrey Combs furrows his brow and bugs his eyes as the preternaturally intense Herbert West, a maverick medical student whose gory, gooey experiments cause bloody corpses and body parts to jerk to life. Bruce Abbot is the studious roommate drawn into his extracurricular experiments, which soon involve the dean's daughter (the frequently naked Barbara Crampton) and the college's cadaverous, calculating star professor (David Gale), who literally loses his head over a battle for West's discovery. In this world, that's only a minor setback. Charged with sick gallows humor and a ghoulish gallery of undead beasties, Re-Animator, like Evil Dead II, is one of the most inspired and inventive--and funniest--horror films of the 1980s. Combs, Abbot, and Gale reunite for the almost-as-entertaining sequel Bride of Re-Animator. --Sean Axmaker

The boys and I just finished watching it, I hadn't watched it in about 10 years or so, but it was damn good fun to watch again.
We love gross horror films here, and this one has plenty of gore to keep you gurgling the vomit back from coming out of your mouth.
It has every thing a classic horror film of days gone by should have.
Gratuitous sex, bouncing boobies, blood, gore and a sinister plot.

Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West, is fabulously sinister and twisted just as I recall him from 1985's first viewing of the movie.
I admit to loving him in this role, and even have a sort of geeky crush on the killer and re-animating doctor.
I love his eyebrows and pursed lips.

Second X-Files movie is coming.

Word is out that a second X-Files movie is moving towards production.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The "X-Files" film sequel is heating up.

Co-star David Duchovny indicated Saturday during the Television Critics Association press tour that the film, which has been the subject of speculation for the past few years, is one step closer to becoming a reality.

This is totally cool. X-Files was one of my absolute favorite shows.
I still watch in re-runs, have a few episodes on tape, and the first movie.
Will Gillian Anderson be in it too?
Yeuss!

Duchovny also reiterated past remarks that he and "X-Files" co-star Gillian Anderson "are on board" the follow-up to the 1998 film and the series that ran on Fox from 1993 to 2002.

Duchovny was at TCA promoting his upcoming Showtime comedy series "Californication," which debuts August 13.