Dead Snow (2009)

Dead Snow
2009
Horor/Foreign

Nazi Zombies! You heard me right, this movie is about Nazi Zombies. Do I really need to say anything else? Doesn't that tell you all you really need to know about it? Nazis are really the go to villian in a lot of cases where they couldn't come up with a better idea, and zombies are the go to villian for horror movies where they couldn't come up with a better idea. Combine the two and you have a perfect nemesis for a horror movie, an evil villian who is already dead but just won't die. Dead Snow is actually a Norwegian film. It is about a young adults who go away to a secluded cabin for a weekend (what horror film doesn't start that way) but run into the area's current inhabitants, Nazis who were stationed there during World War II but were killed by some angry villagers and never really left.

Dead Snow isn't one of the best zombie movies I have seen, but it is a good one. This is noteworthy since most recent lower budget zombie movies that have come out have been garbage. People are just trying to cash in on the zombie craze by turning out crap cheap and fast, regardless of good it actually is. Some of the characters in the movie actually talk about Evil Dead 1 and 2 which makes a lot of sense because Dead Snow reminded me a lot of the works of Sam Raimi. I say that because of the excessive use of blood and gore, to the extent that it's not even gross, just hilarious.
I mean just look at these examples of what the zombies in Dead Snow do to some of the people:
1. Grab him by the head and pull it apart down the middle so his brain falls out onto the floor.
2. A guy hangs off the side of a cliff by holding onto the intestines of one of the zombies.
3. Five zombies grab a guy then all at once, rip off all of his limbs from his torso.

Zombie and over the top horror movies aren't for everyone. But if you do like movies like Evil Dead, Drag Me To Hell, or Hatchet, then definately check out Dead Snow. I mean how can you really go wrong with Nazi zombies eating Norwegian co-eds?

3 out 5 Stars

Below is the trailer for Dead Snow

The Donner Party (2009)

The Donner Party
2009
Drama
Crispin Glover, Alison Haislip

I know this is why you guys come to this blog, to read me ramble on about movies you never heard of and will probably never see, okay actually I know that's not true at all, but this is one of those times. I doubt many of you heard about The Donner Party (the movie, not the actual party) until right now. In real life the Donner party was an infamou group of pioneers traveling to California in the winter of 1846-47 who become stranded by a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and who are then forced to resort to cannibalism to stay alive. In this movie we follow a small group of that party, none with the last name Donner, as they deal with being stuck in the frozen Sierra Nevada mountains with no food.

I only saw this movie because Alison Haislip is in it. For those who don't know who Alison Haislip is she is one the hosts of the TV show "Attack of the Show" on G4. It is basically a news show about video games, comic books, movies, and TV with a bunch of random jokes and skits thrown in for good measure. I personally love the show, so I rented The Donner Party to support Alison Haislip as an actress.

Sadly, this movie was pretty boring. I guess being starving and freezing really doesn't leave the oppurtunity for much to happen between the characters. The characters are either just sitting around in snow, walking around in snow, or sitting around in snow eating a body part of somebody they had to kill. I realize that they have no food the entire time but it seems like they go from eating the last of their food to eating one of their friends pretty quickly. There wasn't enough debating on whether that was really the best course of action to take.

Crispin Glover is the biggest name actor in the movie. He really did a great job playing the religious but selfish father figure from the one family. He is pretty well known as being a rather crazy person in real life who really becomes the character so I really wonder what he was like on the set of a movie about cannibalism. In case you were wondering, Alison Haislip did a fine job, but she only had like 5 lines so she really didn't get a chance to show off her acting chops. Half the time there is no soundtrack, and what is there is very miminalist. I have a feeling this was done on purpose, but I think a little more obtruse soundtrack could have improved things a little. I don't know where they actually filmed this movie, but I would be remissed if I did not mention how beautiful the scenery is. Though it would probably seem a lot less pretty if I was starving to death in it.

There is really no need to see this movie unless, you are a big Crispin Glover fan (or Alison Haislip fan like me) or interested in the Donner Party from a historical perspective. You won't be missing out on much if you don't see it.

2 out of 5 Stars

Read more about what actually happened to the real life Donner Party (it's quite interesting) at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
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The Hurt Locker (2009)

The Hurt Locker

2009
Drama/Suspense
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie

Heading into this award season many experts have The Hurt Locker as the leader to win Best Picture. Kathryn Bigelow is also considered the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Director, which is pretty amazing considering she is only the 4th woman to ever be nominated in that category (Sophia Coppola got nominated for Lost in Translation, really?). She will actually be competing with her ex-husband James Cameron in that category. The Hurt Locker follows an explosive disposal team in Iraq in the year 2004. When somebody finds an IED (improvised explosive device) on the side of the road, they call in these guys to deal with it.

I absolutely loved every scene dealing with the characters actually disabling bombs. The whole time they were with in reach of an active explosive I was on the edge of my seat. The situation itself as well as the way it was shot created an insane amount of tension and suspense. You sort of get a feeling on what characters are gauranteed to survive, but that does not detract with the fact that you really don't know what might happen when they get a call to a bomb site. I am pretty sure my nerves are nowhere near strough enough to deal with something like that in real life (a question a few of the character's ask themselves in the movie).

Now I said I loved every seen actually involving explosives disposal, but that is only half the movie, and sadly, I found everything else kind of boring. It might have just been because the bomb scenes are so tense and exciting nothing could compare, or it could just be the other scenes just weren't anything special. I never really gained any reason to care about the main characters. They share a little of their backstory but it really made no connection with me at all. Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as the leads do a fine job. I believed them as their characters. They greatly expressed the wide range of emotions a team like that would go through. As great as they actors were, half of the movie really gives them very little to work with. There is a side story about Jeremy Renner's character befriending an Iraqi boy that starts off good, gets really intense, then diverts into what I consider to be an unrealistic and unnecessary detour that greatly took me out of the situation.

One issue a lot of people had with the movie was that the way the character dealt with the bombs and explosives was unrealistic and not how it was actually done. That did not bother me at all. I wasn't expecting a documentary on how to disable IEDs. I think they chose to show the situations in the way that best built tension and kept people's attention. I am okay with giving up a little realism if it is for the sake of improved entertainment. Though it is a valid complaint.

I recommend people check out The Hurt Locker. It has some of the most suspenseful and intense scenes I have seen in a movie this year. Unfortunately those scenes are surrouned by some stuff I didn't find that interesting. There is probably a good chance you will enjoy it more than me since most critics seemed to. It is not my favorite movie of the year, but I didn't hate it so it won't really bother me at all if it ends up winning Best Picture.

3 out of 5 Stars
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I Went On A Little Movie Watching Spree

I watch more movies than the average person already, but this weekend I took it up another notch and since I had nothing to do I ended up watching a lot of movies. I tried to mix them up a lot by genre, which I think I accomplished. It also would not have been possible without Netflix Instant streaming (and the ability to stream through my XBOX 360 to my TV). When Netflix first introduced their Instant streaming option on their site the selection was really weak. But over the last year or so it has improved greatly. Now there are hundred of good classic movies as well as newer releases and complete TV series ready to stream at the click of a button, it is a really great option than Netflix includes in your membership. So anyways over the past 5 days or so I have watched the following movies:

Planet Hulk
The Hurt Locker
9
The Donner Party
Detroit Rock City
Killing Zoe
Cannibal! The Musical
Dr. Strangelove
I'm Reed Fish
Singles
Cliffhanger

So yea, I guess I had too much free time on my hands. Now lets see how many of those movies I actually take the time to write a little about.
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Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening (2009)

Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening
2009
Stand Up Comedy
Aziz Ansari

Something you may not know about me is that I really don't like stand up comedy. Every so often I will find a comedian I like, but for the most part I never watch stand up routines. But based on what I had seen of Aziz Ansari, both stand up and acting roles and most importantly his old sketch show Human Giant, I found him to be funny so I decided to rent his new stand up special. Overall, I really liked it. Aziz is a funny dude in my book. But to get the enjoyment I got out of it you are going to have to be familiar with the following topics:

- Facebook (and not just in general, but know how people actually use it and react to things on it)
- the MTV show Next
- Kaney West
- Coldstone Creamery
- His character Raaaaaaaandy from the movie Funny People. At the end of the special he does an extra 10 mintues of material as Raaaaaaaandy, his alter ego that only tells jokes about his sex life and has a DJ backing him up.

The only special feature on the disc is him doing another 30 minutes of stand up material in front of an improv class. I loved this extra stand up material because he talks about one of my favorite shows of all time, Kid Nation, and the jokes he tells proves he actually watched it too, which makes him awesome.

I watch very little stand up, but when I do choose to watch some it is usually because I really enjoy the comedian. After watching this special Aziz Ansari joins the short list of stand up comedians I really love. Check it out if you are looking for some new stand up to watch. Now I just wish Human Giant would get released on DVD.

3 out of 5 Stars
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Gamer (2009)

Gamer
2009
Action
Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall, Ludacris

I rented Gamer not really expecting it to be a good movie at all. I just hoped it was a crazy action movie I could have some fun while watching. It couldn't even deliver in that sense. There were just too many problems that made it an unejoyable experience.

Netlfix summarized the plot like this:
It's 2034, and humans can control and kill each other in a large-scale online gaming world. But Kable (Gerard Butler), a wrongfully convicted soldier forced to join the violent competition, tries to free himself by taking out its evil architect, Ken (Michael C. Hall). While being controlled by a rich kid (Logan Lerman), Kable must also save his wife, Angie (Amber Valletta), who's trapped in her own avatar world.

My thoughts about Gamer and now presented in a handy Pros vs Cons format.

Pros
- Boobs.
There are quite a few pairs of exposed boobs in this movie, and I consider that a positive.
- Violence.
I don't know if I have ever seen a movie with so many people getting shot in the head that actually showed that. Now violence in itself is not a positive, but I appreciate the fact that they went for it and didn't censore themselves.
- Attempts at video game and internet humor.
Only the attempt to reach out to these groups with inside jokes, not the actual execution of the jokes.


Cons
- Makes no sense.
There are so many things about the plot of this movie that make absolutely no sense. I won't list them all so I will just talk about the main one. In the movie a criminal on death row is allowed to play in a real life video game, but their body is being controlled by some kid playing it like a video game. If the kid wins enough matches in the game, the prisoner goes free. Why would they release the prisoner off of death row because some random kid was good at a video game? It literally has nothing to do with the prisoner, it makes no sense. Like I said there are a BUNCH of things about the plot in this movie that make no sense at all, but I don't have the time or patience to try and remember and list them all.
- Barely anything is explained.
In addition to stuff shown that makes no sense there are a ton of things that are not explained at all. How do they pick who controls the convicts? Not explained at all. I have a feeling most things weren't explained because the writers had no idea how to explain them.
- The action scenes.
One thing I did expect out of this movie were fun action scenes, and it didn't deliver. The action scenes are directed so terribly it basically ruins any enjoyment I could have gotten out of them.
- Pointless song and dance number.
Yea, you read that right. And yes, it was pointless and made no sense.
- The execution of video game and internet jokes.
I like that they tried to make these inside jokes to the video game community but all of them were executed poorly. And most of them seemed like they were written up by a 12 year old.
- Trying to make a social statement.
I think this movie was trying to make a statement that technology controls too much of our life. But it was hard to really get that message when the movie was so bad.
- The directing and editing.
Basically see everything above in the Cons section to see what these guys did wrong.


All I wanted when I rented Gamer was to have a fun time watching Gerard Butler shooting guys, but it I couldn't even find enjoyment of it on that level. There are way too many things wrong about this movie to ever suggest someone should watch it.

1.5 out of 5 Stars
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Pandorum (2009)

Pandorum
2009
Sci-Fi/Horror
Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid

2009 was a surprisngly strong year for sci-fi movies. Star Trek was a huge blockbuster hit. District 9 exceeded most people's expectations. Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time. I still haven't seen all the big sci fi movies that came out last year (Moon for instance), but as of last night I have seen Pandorum and I think it might have just been the best one. Somehow it only has a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes which makes no sense to me, and just makes me have less faith in critics' opinions. Because my "Tomato" rating was that it was pretty fucking awesome.

There is really not much new or groundbreaking about Pandorum, but it somehow still felt fresh. The story is very similar to many other movies (notably Alien and Event Horizon). A spaceship is in deep space (where there is no one to help when something goes wrong), some creatures show up, all hell breaks loose, and it goes from there. This time when stuff goes wrong the characters are in hyper sleep (they were basically frozen so they wouldn't age), so when they wake up they have no idea how long they were asleep for, and also suffer from short term amnesia. This makes the craziness going on in the ship to be even more frightening and confusing. When they finally start to get a grasp on what is going on they figure out a plan and set it into action to save the ship and whoever might be left of the crew. Even though I would label this a sci-fi movie, there are a lot of horror elements in it. The creatures that appear on the ship are very disgusting and frightening. So I wouldn't recommend this for people who get scared by stuff easily. Just imagining being chased by them could give you nightmares for a few days. One thing I appreciated about Pandorum was when it came to the creatures they didn't make them CGI. They were created with make up which just helps build the sense of the events really happening. The spaceship was also wonderfully created. Both the exterior shots showcasing its massive shape, and the intimate scenes taking place in its endless supply of winding corridors throughout the ship.

The two big names in this movie are Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid. Ben Foster is the starring role and does a fantastic job. I don't think I have ever seen him in something that I didn't like him in. It is great to watch his character trying to piece together what the hell happened on the spaceship, while at the same time trying to stay alive. Dennis Quaid had a smaller role than I imagined, but his character was still integral. There is a twist involving his character that I saw from a mile away, but it was still entertaining to watch take place.

With about 15 minutes left in the movie I was getting scared that it might end in a very unsatisfying way. Luckily for me the ending was not something I saw coming at all, but absolutely loved. Normally when I watch movies I am constantly checking how much time is left (bad habit), but I wasn't doing that with Pandorum. I was so into the story that the first half of the movie had flow by in what seemed like 10 minutes before I looked at how much more I had to go.

Pandorum isn't the most hyped sci-fi film from 2009 but I think I enjoyed it more than all the rest. It had a great mix of sci-fi and horror elements. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next while at the same time sitting back because I was afraid of what might be popping up around the next corner. Pandorum is really a must seeif you liked the similar movies I mentioned previously. I also say its a must see if you like sci fi, horror, or just want to watch an interesting movie with some creepy stuff going on.

4.5 out 5 Stars

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