28 Weeks Later (2007)

Finally, a movie worth reviewing.

As I continued to do this blog thing, to sort of document my own thoughts and ideas about the movies I see, I sort of hit a road block. The movies I was seeing weren't affecting me at all. No lessons learned, no awful movies or fantastic ones.

This obviously presents a problem for keeping a regular flow of blog posts. However, 28 Weeks Later hit the theaters this weekend, and finally something worth telling you to go see.

Brief Summary

28 Weeks Later is the sequel to 28 Days Later. No, not 28 Days, haha. In 28 Days Later, a blood borne virus that turns people into manic killers wipes out most of the UK, aside from the rarest of survivors. (Imagine how quickly a BLOOD borne virus must spread when its mode of travel is an adrenaline over-clocked human ravenously trying to eat your face. Wildfire? Yeah that's a decent word for it. Wildfire. "Zombies" is a good word....but use it loosely. These aren't mopey 'Night of the Living Dead' Zombies.) It is the story of a man that wakes up 28 days after the outbreak in the middle of a deserted, dead country full of rabid zombie-people. 28 Weeks Later is the story of the attempt to repopulate Britain, and how quickly it gets out of control.

I'm no movie psychic. And here I thought I had it.

I went into this movie with low expectations. It was written by three new screenwriters, and if you look them up on IMDB they have less than ten credits to their name. This should have excited me but instead I just sort of felt like it was going to be a let down.

Alex Garland, writer of the first film, was the executive producer of this one. Danny Boyle, director of the first film, was also an EP on this one. So, obviously, it's not that the talent left - it's just that they all moved up the ladder a few notches.

After I noticed that, I felt a lot better. The one thing I was worried most about was a 'blockbuster' feel coming to this film after the success of the first one. Not at all. Everything that was great about the first one was here. Much to my relief, the people that made this movie 'get it' and didn't mess up the reputation of what I think is one of the greatest 'horror' stories in years.

28 Weeks Later has one fantastic element that you'll find in most horror films - the lack of a singular protagonist. You're not sure who you're meant to love because characters are lost as soon as they are found, some are given great amounts of time and energy from the viewers just to be taken away, and you find yourself becoming attached very quickly to anyone that find their way onto the screen - they could be with you until the end of the movie, or they could die a moment later.

If it was just a bunch of extras and morally depraved characters dying we wouldn't feel the tragedy. That's why you always get a gorgeous blond as a lead in horror movies, right? Right. Instead of employing the cheap shot of physical beauty, the characters have worth and meaning to you as they develop. Making it all the worse when you see this terrible disease not discriminate or choose its victims.

We all have fears and mystery surrounding apocalypse. We don't know how we act in large groups, we don't know how we will be treated by our governments, our friends, complete strangers, or even the ones we think would take bullets for us. This is one of those films that can shed some real light on what it means to be in the midst of widespread, uncontrollable danger.

I don't know if this is just a horror movie - has a lot of elements of a war movie, the heroes, the widespread decisions made by governments, and the idea of protecting the rest of the world from a very real threat. Hhhm...

28 Weeks later proved you can make a fantastic sequel to a fantastic movie - so long as the people behind it have genuine interest in the integrity of the storyline. A horror movie with deep emotional moments and relationships - a war movie where brute force doesn't always win. This movie is so hard to classify but that's part of it's appeal.

As surprised as I am to hear myself say this...err....see myself type this? If you found beauty and horror and entertainment and all things wonderful in the 28 Days Later, you won't be dissapointed by 28 Weeks Later.

Running With Scissors (2006)

Hence, the value of a memior.

There comes a moment during every radical story that the viewer stops and remembers that this is 'just a story'. That luxury isn't present in Running With Scissors, the film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs memior by the same name.

Augusten grew up with as wild and at the same time as normal of a life as everyone else. His life is filled with people with high hopes, broken dreams, delusions....all the same people we're used to in our own lives - only a little different.

Take every strange person you've ever met, every deep and beautiful person you've ever met, and compound them into less than ten souls - then you've got the people closest to Augusten Burroughs. Unbelievable? Well, believe it.

That's truly the beauty of this film... if it were just a story, it could be dismissed as sensational, looking for shock value, and generally disjointed, unfocused, and trite.

But it's true.

There's a value in truth that goes continually undervalued in modern film. It seems to me that the success of movies like this is a huge indicator that people are longing for more than an escape from life - their starting to look for a definition of it. People feel alienated by pop culture the way it stands.... but that's changing, because people need to know that the lives we lead aren't as crazy as we make them out to be.

Besides, there's always the gay schizophrenic to ease your troubles that you're not THAT normal.

Calling all Talent!

A fantastic story with compelling characters can be exhalted or destroyed by a very common mistake - casting. Running With Scissors did an excellent job finding people with enough faith in their directors and screenwriters to make the film glow with realism.

Jill Clayburgh (Agnes Finch) was like a mythical creature, her teary eyes and tattered hair told a story all its own of her decades of sacrificing everything, never having any dreams of her own.

Annette Bening's (Deirdre Burroughs) wild staring eyes, full of delusions of granduer told a story as well, albeit completely inversed from Agnes', of a person who never made a single sacrifice, and lived completely for her dreams.

These two were my favorite performances, but (as strange as it is to say) Alec Baldwin could not go unnoticed for doing a great job for a change, finally finding a character that suits his already apathetic vibe. Same goes for the rest, the whole film had beautiful art direction, costume design, and casting all around.

Hopefully this taste of the real (albeit bizarre) will resonate with people due to the talented people that made it all happen. There's more room for these films out there,when people start seeing how we can all leave the theater feeling a little more normal, a little more acceptable, and a little more alive than the unfortunate alienation from the normal we're all used to.

Hence, the value of a memior.

The Dry Season.....

I've been really hesitant to go to the movies lately, for several reasons. Number one, that should be most important to everyone, is that there hasn't really been anything out that I'm looking forward to seeing, or even curious about. I pretty much don't anticipate many surprises lurking around the corner with our current selection of films, so I don't like wasting my time and money.

Number two is that none of the above have surprised anyone else, either....meaning, I haven't seen any stellar reviews for anything, especially on rottentomatoes.com, which I check daily for unexpected results from the latest releases. When the highest thing on the list is Jet Li's Fearless, followed by a whopping 59% approval of Jackass: number two, it's needless to say that the well is dry, or at least a dirty puddle of soupy cess no one would ingest unless desperate to survive.

The third and most trivial reason is that I've been very adequately enjoying my netflix subscription. If you've never looked into it, one of the greatest parts of the whole thing is the recommendations section. Basically, they recommend stuff to me that other people with similar tastes have recommended highly. When movies I own or love started popping up in the list, that gave it a lot of credibility. I've yet to delve into the many films I'm taking a chance on, so we'll see how that goes.

Until the industry turns out something worth seeing in the coming months, getting ready for Oscar season is a drag. Hopefully as the year ends and all of the studios put their sunday best on and prance around with their GOOD movies, things will start picking up.

Until then, at least I've got Carnivale to watch.

The Last Kiss (2006)

Zach Braff's newest film gig, The Last Kiss, had a lot of hope from me in my previous posts, as you may remember. In some ways it delivered, in some ways, not so much.

While in my own confused young-adult life, I can see a lot of things about this movie that resonated with me. Fear of committments, the paralyzing notion that 'life is over' and the like. It's what we all go through to some degree, and in that way, the movie spoke to me.

The tone was somber, like it was inappropriate to have laughs the way one feels at a funeral or something. For that reason, the movie was a drag. There were a lot of beautiful crane shots of emotional people in the rain, and a lot of sincere tears, but a few good hearty laughs would have balanced out the drama a little better.

I suppose when you've got the director of many Grey's Anatomy episodes paired with the writer of Million Dollar Baby and Crash, you should expect 'heavy'.

I wasn't convinced of Michael's transition. His motives as a character seemed riddled with guilt and obligation from beginning to end, but it was portrayed as a rebirth instead of the more effective route, which would have been "look at this guy - the more he changes, the more he stays the same." All of the events could have stayed the same, and with a little bit different mood and tone, made an entirely different context.

I recently had the chance to see Zach Braff on Scrubs. While I like the show, I cry a little inside when I watch how goofy they make him be. He has a good thing going with this Garden State, Last Kiss character, most definitely is stronger suit.

This movie, while romantic, is not a date movie. You don't take your girlfriend to see it and just think she's going to be saturated with romance afterwards....if anything, it is a date anti-septic - reminding us all how hard relationships can be sometimes......ick.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Every now and then when you go to the movies, you've just got a really great feeling about what you're getting into, right? Well I had this with Little Miss Sunshine.

I was right.

This movie marks the beginning of something new (to the mainstream) for independent films. Something that *gasp* EVERYONE can enjoy! It's fun for the whole family! haha....ahem.

LMS has the feeling of an independent film, the look and feel like when you know you're watching a soap opera on TV. It gives this otherwise strange story a great chemistry, like listening to your favorite albums on vinyl instead of CD....it just wouldn't be the same if it was over-produced.

The movie is about a normal family (normal in the sense that they are all strange...like any real family) that has to get their youngest child to a beauty pageant in a matter of days, in the midst of family catastrophe.

Steve Carell could quickly make a name for himself between movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin contrasted against a movie like this one. His character is solemn and introverted, and his ability act stunned me. I think it's one of those great things about guys with a funny streak....their imagination is so well tuned that they can act better than a lot of dramatic actors.

I've never seen an independent movie that heralds family values and what it means to be a part of a family quite the way this one does. It makes you want to hug your mom. And then hit your brother, because maybe he deserves it, and that's what family does....they hug, and they punch one another because sometimes family is the only one that will tell you like it is.

Ultimately, the film is uplifting and at the same time part of a subculture of movies that tell you about life like it really is.....an odd combination, but a very successful one that makes this independent movie accessible by a much wider audience than most.

I think that if more independent film makers' movies were written with the goal of self-expression married to the goal of accessibility, their messages would be much more widely acknowledged than they currently are. There's a lot to be said for making a good movie, but a lot more to be said for getting butts in the theatre, and I don't just mean financially.

No reason not to see this movie. It's hilarious and different, yet easy to watch. Now if only there were more like this....

One more trailer

I'd bet the farm on this one, for reasons abound...cast and writers mostly.

The Last Kiss (9/15/06)

Coming Attractions

I thought it would be a good idea to throw up some trailers of movies I'm watching out for, looking forward to, or find otherwise noteworthy. Whether it's the fact that a virtual no-name is directing the next installment of the ninja turtles franchise, or the fact that Clive Owen and Julianne Moore are on screen together, there's a reason all of these are here, and have perked my interest at the theatres.

Babel (10/26/06)

Jet Li's Fearless (9/22/06)

The Illusionist (8/18/06)

A Scanner Darkly (supposedly in Montgomery AND B-ham on 8/4/06, and you Dothanites can fuggettaboutit)

Spiderman 3 (5/07)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (3/07)

Children of Men (9/29/06)

The US vs. John Lennon (9/06)

Mini's First Time (limited release 7/26/06)