ATM

ATM
(2012) [Trailer]
Director: David Brooks (IMDB)

Parkas are my favorite jackets. I've owned one for most of my life. Each year as the seasons change and the weather drops, you can always count on the parka to keep you nice and warm. Now, thanks to ATM, you can also count on a parka making you look like a scary murderer too.

ATM centers around an ATM. Pretty high concept right? Three 20 somethings stop at an ATM one night after a work party and are stalked by a killer wearing... you guessed it... a parka.

This was a pretty fun horror flick. It's got the whole slasher thing going for it, but instead of the killer hunting down his prey, he traps them and slowly terrorizes them. This movie isn't perfect but does a decent job at holding your attention. There are definitely believability issues in the film and it's one of those horror movies you find yourself saying "why aren't they doing this?" or "why don't they try that?" At the end of the day, I found it enjoyable. Check it out if you're in the mood for a new horror flick. It's available now,  before it hits theaters, on video on demand.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin
(2011) [Trailer]
Director: Lynne Ramsay (IMDB)

I think I've mentioned this before in another review but... I hate children. If you're under the age of 16, chances are you're an asshole... oh you don't think so... just watch this movie and try to tell me otherwise.

Tilda Swinton is a reluctant mother raising a fucked up kid (Kevin) with her husband Dr Steve Brule. Since birth something is off between mother and son, and as time passes the problem becomes worse.

This movie is so solid and I can't really think of anything bad I can say about it. I love the cinematography a lot, some of the best I've seen all year. The soundtrack is pretty cool as well. Tilda Swinton does an amazing job displaying herself as a removed and frustrated mother. Did her desire to be young and live a different life lead to the way Kevin turned out? Is her kid just naturally screwed up? These are all questions left on the viewer and you're not too sure what's really going on until things start to unravel. I would have probably had this in my top ten had I seen it last year. It's a really entertaining film and I definitely recommend you pick it up. I believe it comes out on blu-ray/DVD/VOD this week or next.

Beauty Day

Beauty Day
(2011) [Trailer]
Director: Jay Cheel (IMDB)

O Canada, O Canada, the place of my birth. Besides myself, Canada is also known for producing Tim Horton's, great hockey players, and other awesome things. If you don't like our friendly neighbors to the north, chances are you're a douche. One thing that Canada has produced that you might not know about is Cap'n Video.

Beauty Day is a documenty about Ralph Zavadil, or as he's better known to native Ontarians, Cap'n Video. Cap'n Video was a outlandish 90's local cable celebrity known for performing crazy, low budget stunts à la MTV's Jackass, but well before them. You might recognize him from THIS! Beauty Day goes into the history of the Cap'n, the present and how his life has changed.

This is an excellent film and extremely well done, especially considering it's director Jay Cheel's first full length documentary. The subject matter is captivating and for not having known anything about Cap'n Video ahead of my initial viewing, I found myself really into his story. The direction and cinematography are reminiscent of Errol Morris or Werner Herzog, so if you're into them, chances are you'll love this. It's still a little hard to get a hold of it here in the states but check out the trailer and website HERE. You can also order it directly from HERE... or if you know me and are here in the city, I'll let you borrow it because I'm nice like that.

ALSO: Please take and moment and visit HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE. It's Jay Cheel's new project and HotDocs is currently doing a kickstarter for funding. It's looks amazing so far, and worth your time. I've donated and you should do the same if you want to be cool like me.

The Mod Squad

The Mod Squad
(1999) [Trailer]
Director: Scott Silver (IMDB)

This is my wife's favorite movie. Okay, let me change that before she reads this and gets mad. It was her favorite movie in high school. Has time been kind to this film, I guess we'll find out now?

Three screw ups are arrested on minor charges then hired by the police to infiltrate a secret drug ring. I was gonna add more to this, but that's pretty much all you need to know.

I remember thinking this was not a great movie back when I saw it, and I was right. This is a remake of a television show from the 60's that tries to infuse the show's aesthetic with a late 90's appearance. I definitely felt that this approach did not work, it ended up looking extremely dated, and in a bad way. Claire Danes is okay, Giovanni Ribisi is pretty awful, and Omar Epps is boring (with the exception of the chase scene). Epps is also not very believable as someone undercover. He kept staring at the drug dealers in the bar, no couth... plus he walks kind of weird in the movie and it bothered me a lot. The sound track was all over the place and not effective. The direction was really lame, there were tons of cheesy parts that were very typical. This time around I felt pretty similar to the first time I saw this, it's forgettable, and it should stay that way.

Young Adult

Young Adult 

(2011) [Trailer]
Director: Jason Reitman (IMDB)

So let me start off this review by stating, I’m not really a Diablo Cody fan. It would easy to pick on her with Jennifer’s Body or the United States of Tara (extremely realistic show about a woman with so so many personalities that it’s ridiculous) but really the movie that annoyed me the most was Juno. While, I would agree many of the sixteen year old Juno’s jokes and references are amusing, the fact remains that she is sixteen and sixteen year olds aren’t filled with so much wisdom, life experience and Soupy-Sales (a radio DJ and TV star who retired in 1987, which you guessed it would be 4 years before Juno would have been born) references. Anyway, this movie is very different from those but, once again, I didn’t love it.

               

The movie stars Charlize Theron as the thirty seven year old Mavis (yes the name is Mavis) Gary who is an accomplished ghost writer for a wildly popular and now failing young adult book series akin to the Twilight Series. The former prom queen, (stated in the film) recently has been divorced and that coupled with now failing writing career has her in a serious depression. She then receives an email that states her former High School lover has just had a baby with his new wife. So, just like most people, she decides that this is the man to pursue and travels to her home town in a (honestly sad) attempt to win his heart back.

                

Overall, I found this movie mildly amusing because Charlize is such a drunk mess throughout the film. However, this movie was missing a few key things. First, it is amazingly unfunny for a film classified as a comedy-drama. There was literally no moments when I laughed, mostly I just felt uncomfortable and sad for Charlize as she continues to be just a horrible person. Secondly, this movie felt incredibly predictable. Granted most films are to some degree pretty easy to guess what will happen, but I ask you this reader, what do you think happens in this film? Will Charlize end up with her high school sweetheart, who JUST had a baby? Or will she end up making a fool of herself? Well if you can’t figure this out, maybe this is the film for you, but for me, this was average at best. 

Serenity

Serenity
(2006) [Trailer]
Director: Joss Whedon (IMDB)

Over the last two months I've been watching Firefly on Netflix streaming and it rules. I never got a chance to check this series out when it was on TV, but it's never to late to start thanks to modern technology (Netflix).

The greasy corporate suits over at Fox decided to pull the plug on Firefly after half a season. This is the movie that followed in order to wrap up the story line. 500 years into the future the Earth is all used up. Humans head out to other planets, terraform them and start to colonize. Some planets thrived, others didn't, in between all that madness we get the story of Serenity. A space ship of renegades harboring a government secret... a little girl who's a killing machine.

This movie is a glorified TV episode, which is a good thing. I would honestly recommend you see the Firefly series before watching this, it's only 14 episodes and won't take too much time. It's definitely a little more high budget than the show and there's a lot more special effects. There's not as much western stuff in there, which I miss from the show, but does offer some pretty awesome space battles which were almost nonexistent in the series. The original cast were great, and fortunately they're all back on board. Also manning the helm is Josh Whedon, who's writing and direction are suburb. Serenity (and Firefly) is really fun and a cool campy sci-fi flick which holds up nicely. Check it out, and the show, out on Netflix instant.