Wreck - It - Ralph (2012)

   Wreck - it - Ralph is the perfect example to me of why great cute kiddie movies can be enjoyed by anyone and bad cute kiddie movies can only be enjoyed by children. Don't get me wrong this movie definitely falls into the former it's got a great cast and a beautiful art direction with fun and exciting visuals and like all Disney films it has memorable colorful characters ya just wanna hold onto forever. It's just plain to see that this movie works as a kids movies because it ignores a lot of mind blowing out of the box ideas in favor of a simple cute little story divided up among a few well written characters with video game jokes and candy puns galore. 

   I'll get this out of the way now, the movies biggest problem is complexity, because it has to be accessible to a younger audience they have to cut out of the cute interesting story to explain and re-explain all the rules of the world around them. Details and conflicts that are important to the story but the movie doesn't seem to have the balls to work in subtly because the kids need to be able to follow too. To put it simply the world is that of classic arcade games, the movie takes place in an old arcade and though we briefly see people outside the games the story focuses on the characters within an old school 8 - bit platformer, a cutsie candy coated racing game, and a swarm infested sci-fi first person shooter. Wreck - it - Ralph, the antagonist of a game called Fix - it - Felix, is sick of being the "bad guy"and getting no recognition for the hard work he puts in every day and the hard life he lives being shown no respect. He starts game jumping throughout the arcade and eventually befriends a little girl named Vanellope who is desperately trying to be a part of a racing games that looks like Candy Land. 

   I won't spoil the rest but for what it's worth this is a good movie. Despite its problems it has loveable characters, a good story, and a lot of funny nerdy video game jokes from all manner of retro games. Nerds like myself will get a kick out of a lot of what they sprinkle in throughout this movie. What makes it great is what makes all these Disney and Pixar movies great (I mean the good ones... I mean not Cars or the Rat one) characters you immediately connect with. Characters you want to see succeed because you can identify with their struggles. 

   This isn't exactly the masterpiece Toy Story for video games I was hoping for but for my money it was a great animated movie. Everyone should see it at one point or another. 

Daniel Craig's James Bond

   I'll be the first to admit that even though I watch and enjoy a lot of movies, I'm not that into James Bond. I like some of the really old ones, but the franchise overall never really hit it for me. When I saw Casino Royale as a young lad all those years ago I remember asking myself why more James Bond movies weren't like this. And when I saw Quantum of Solace a few years later I remembered. Now that I've seen Skyfall, and they've wrapped up a good trilogy of Daniel Craig I think I understand the point. 

   Let's go back a ways shall we? James Bond , code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Felming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. He's a British secret service agent who drives hot cars, fraternizes with any and all hot women, and shoots many manner of cheesy villain with a number of crazy guns and gadgets. The original novels have to date been adapted to death and over the last fifty years film after film starring the suave James Bond have hit the screen and always hit high numbers in the box office. 

  The series has had it's highs and lows, it's amazing works of art and its shoddy piles of shit, but the films always keep to form and always try their damnedest. At some point in the early 2000's someone decided to change it up a bit. 2006's Casino Royale put a lower ranking (Now mega star) Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond. While keeping to a lot of the classic James Bond traditions it certainly feels more serious and more real than any of the films that came before it. By making the villain seem cartoonishly evil, but then wrap him in a very realistic conflict with lots of deep espionage that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of by the end of the film. That said its still a great movie, Craig proved to be the perfect modern day James Bond and they squeezed out a damn good espionage thriller out of what should have been a generic action movie. It also introduced to great casting choices, Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, the head of MI6 the British Secret Service. Dench is always a good choice but as her part in these movies gradually got bigger, to the point of her being a main character in Skyfall it was obvious someone was thinking ahead. She's strong in every one of her many scenes and brings the trilogy to a whole other level of quality.

   Despite being different Casino Royale was a success and Craig was signed on for a sequel entitled; Quantum of Solace. Which critics across the board deemed far less than satisfactory. In an effort to keep the story of the previous film going it picks up right where Casino Royale left off and gets immediately kinda confusing and strange. Not really making the antagonist or the conflict clear, it tries to deal more with Bond growing and changing as a character based on the events of the first movie. 

   Except it can't really do that because James Bond is pretty much a stock character and the way Craig plays him he's already a lot more badass than any of the Bond's before him. So his growth is all played out vicariously through a side character, a girl out for revenge of the man  that killed her family. While this sounds good on paper it forces us to accept some things that don't seem within Bond's character. For one we're supposed to believe he genuinely loved the girl who died at the end of Casino Royale. Which while the movie tried to make it seem that way, that isn't something James Bond would do. He's a suave womanizer but he's far too cold and distant for true love. 

   It also means that we're supposed to pay more attention to a supporting character's feelings then the protagonists  But we can;t do that either because while the film tries to keep up its main story it can't always contrive reasons for the girl to be around except  in the beginning and the end. We don;t get to see her change, and nothing ever confirms that she does. So we're left with Bond trying to play off this girl, he's supposed to relate to her struggle so that they can over come vengeance together. It all kinda falls flat because we don't get enough of the girl and it doesn't suit Bond on his own. 

   By the time the end rolls around the movie has plainly tell us "He was the bad guy, and this was the bad thing he was doing". No one really cares movie. Sorry. While I don't hate this movie, it really isn't very good. It begs the question, where were they going with this?

   Looking back on all that I'm surprised this wasn't more obvious. Skyfall turns out to be both the least and most James Bond - esque movie of the Daniel Craig trilogy. What really boggled my mind was that it could be so action packed, and have a great deep villain with an interesting story, and segway out of this series perfectly without feeling the need to compensate for the weird shit that happened in the previous two stories. I'm pretty sure they planned a lot more of this out from the start than anyone predicted and as far as I'm concerned these three films make the entire series of movies feel a lot more complete. 

  Basically during a rough mission Bond gets taken out of the job for a while and most people presume he's dead. As it turns out he's just trying to move on from everything that happened to him. But when a villain from his supervisor M's past come out swinging at MI6 agents through cyber terrorism Bond will have to come back to finish the job.

   And that he does with gun fights and car chases and international travel and its all very sloppy because he's so out of practice from those years of being dead. This movie doesn't have nearly as much espionage as the other two and it absolutely has its heart set on one thing, seeing James Bond stare his limits in the face. He's not fit, he can barely fire a gun, and he spends all his time in a stressed panic because he can't keep up with the villain played by Javier Bardem. Who, as we all know, is the best a playing psycho killers. I won't spoil where all that ends up or what the movie is really playing trying to show us Bond's weaknesses but by  the end of the movie, with all its great action and fantastic acting coupled with starborn writing I understood theses movies. What I'm about to go into is A SPOILER and I recommend if you haven't seen the movie yet do that because it's great. 

   The Daniel Craig James Bond films are prequels to the series as a whole. Through the three films they've managed to explain all of James Bond most known qualities; he's a heartless womanizer because love betrayed him, he doesn't go out for revenge and stays cold and calculating because revenge doesn't solve anything, and he's loyal to his job because the one person who always stuck her neck out for him died under his protection and he wants to do his country the utmost justice. That's why these movies don't feel like James Bond movies, because they seem to be more about the origin of how James Bond as we know him came into being. Which in my opinion makes them all totally awesome. Daniel Craig's acting never falters and in Skyfall there is literally a scene where he allude's to his past and explains how he got to his lowest point and we as the audience realize with him that James Bond can't leave, nor can he die, nor can he love, nor can he look back. Because if he does, the world around him literally crumbles. 

   I for one cannot wait to see where they take James Bond in the future but the franchise seems to be in good hands. 

Midnight Horror Marathon (2012) : Paranormal Activity 4, Sinister, V/H/S, Silent Hill : Revelations

   Ya know the feeling of walking into a store you think might have exactly what our looking for only to find that it has nothing of the sort? The way the store laughs you back, spits in your face and calls you trash? Horror movies this year have been making me feel this way. HOWEVER over the past few weeks I saw some horror movies. Movies I expected to suck, Movies I had no hope for. Movies that seemed like gigantic wastes of time. These are those movies. 

   I can't say I was really hyped for this film, the series as a whole is just okay and the only part of it that I think goes above and beyond is the end of the third film. So when I saw that not only had this hit theaters, but that it wasn't a joke, I was very concerned. Then I actually went and saw it with my manliest of manly compadres and we didn't even really scream like little girls at all. No way. Not once. I'm happy to report that while my hopes weren't high this movie actually didn't disappoint me. It had a few slow moments, several obvious plot turns, some iffy effects, and some acting I might not consider acting but overall as a movie it does what it probably should, jump scare a bunch of obnoxious teens in a theater at ten every Friday night and then make everyone think about the ending.  

  Plot wise this film isn't original ; because of stuff in the other movies there's creepy stuff happening to these people who's interpersonal problems get in the way of their ability to see whats really going on in front of them, something supernatural tortures them for a bit, and then in the last 20 minutes shit hits the fan mad hard, and to this films credit it has the best of the shit hitting of the fan of any of these films. Now this movie had a lot of problems that I expected, like I said some of the acting was sub-par  especially the fact that a big portion of the movie centers on two kids who don't seem to understand what they're supposed to be doing and the film really doesn't have a lead character, because of the way the focus shifts as the film goes on. AS you probably expected the film gets most of its scariness off of jump scares and doesn't have a lot to creep or crawl slowly up your skin. 

   What the film does best is, as crazy as this may seem, is pacing. I said it was slow, but it isn't a "dull" slow, it's a sort of strange and engaging slow that 90% of the time can keep your attention simply by putting a lot of subtle images on the screen at once. The main house set is very detailed and real, while the classic Paranormal Activity gag of all the different cameras stays fresh by making all the shots drastically different. Sure they kiss the Kinect's ass in every scene but those shots are some of the coolest and creepiest in the film. 

   It's not without its flaws; while the characters are nice and well rounded compared to the others in the series the plot surrounding them and their back story is weak and standard and blandly uninteresting  The audience can't really identify with one character, instead I'm guessing different people will find themselves in different characters, which would be okay if all the characters didn't act weirdly insane or completely oblivious. The character I identified most with was the nerdy alternative boyfriend who, for lack of a better term, is actually kind of a douche and spends a lot of time off screen. 

   Over all it's not a perfect film but it's certainly engaging, satisfying, and  a great addition to a modern horror franchise. 

   

   Ahhh yes, and on top of the pretty good Paranormal Activity 4 we have the astounding Sinister. And I sincerely mean astounding. Not just because the majority of other horror movies this year have been less entertaining than a moist fart, but because for such a simple looking movie it has amazing acting, writing, directing, make-up, visuals, and proper use of jump scares. Not to mention that it actually feels like an original movie for once. 

   I won't spoil the plot but there's a writer, some murders, and some freaky shit. That really isn't what's important. What matters is that the movie is the only truly good horror movie of the year. Why? 

   Well it has a lot going for it right from the start; an original story with an interesting idea draws everyone in. The writing and the visuals lie somewhere shy of guillermo del toro's over the top style, starting totally grounded in reality and by the end flipping the visuals to elaborate in mysteriously subtle ways. The fact that the movie pretty much has two locations, and takes place primarily in one room is boggling when I think about how much happened. The way they use the central plot device (Some old homemade film reels) to keep up the film's momentum shows impressive film making skills. Keeping it simple, without letting you get bored,

   The place I think the movie shines most is the star. Ethan Hawke  provides a very deep character. It isn't easy having a horror movie about , what is essentially, someone descending into madness without a supporting cast. I mean he has a family and a local sheriff who hate him but Hawke is pretty much alone for the entire movie, and his character brings madness upon himself to the degree where you question whether or not he was in control from the beginning . It makes the movie stand out in a modern horror crowd, reminding me most of classic Lovecraftian short stories about the old gods driving a curious mortal insane, 

   And honestly while I don't think everyone will notice, or even like this but the movie has some pretty cool make up. It walks the same line as the visuals over all being creepy but not too ridiculous. 

   This is, in my opinion, the best big screen horror movie of 2012. Check it out. 

   Ooooooh you frggin kids. With your fracken Pyramid Head. Oh boy... You kids these days... 

   For the uninitiated Silent Hill is a game franchise produced by Konami and developed by a few different groups over the years, though originally by a team called Team Silent who's idea of making a truly great survival horror game wound up spawning a great but slowly dying survival horror franchise that set the bar for what true survival horror means. What made the original three or four games great for me was that everything had a purpose, every gross monster was really a big in your face symbol, and every set piece was really just the town seeing what you would do. It also created some great memorable characters who, after being put through some serious hell, managed to really connect with the player because they felt real and you could see how the town fleshed them out into their truest selves.

   While I feel that not a lot of people saw it back in 2006, I hold to my position that Silent Hill, while not fantastic, is the best video game movie around. It holds truest to the themes of its source material without trying to eradicate the canon or shove any nails into any coffins. It also had impressive visuals, it wasn't so much that they look good more that they looked like Silent Hill, something even some Silent Hill games struggle with. Apart from some shoddy acting it's a great film.

   And the sequel? Well apart from some shoddy acting, it's a great film. Essentially it works for the same reasons that the first one does; keeping pace with the original story of both  the first movie and the games without destroying either, interesting and clever call backs to things that are both relative to the story and fun for fans, and most importantly it gets the visuals. Silent Hill has always been a series where what you see is important both because the town itself is evil and could always be playing tricks on you and because everything has a purpose. 

   As far as the story goes while it could fit in between some of the games I don't really hold the movies in the same cannon as the games. They use the characters and settings from the games to tell their own fitting tale. The story of this movie isn't the best ever told in the series and it really isn't as deep as the first one but it manages to be a little twisty here and there to keep us interested. The dialogue is equally imperfect, and often times very cheesy which I feel may have been intentional but ends up hurting what could be some of the films better moments.

   The cast has some girl, John Snow, Sean Bean ( not dying yet again), and for some reason Malcolm Mcdowell appears very briefly as a crazy blind man. It's kind of super awesome. They really could have been played by anyone and it wouldn't have mattered. Even the times when the acting's good feel like accidents, and are easily the weakest part of the film.

   Sadly I fear that what made this movie for me were the things that related to the games, and non fans will be lost at times and really won't get as much out of it. Objectively it works fine, even if it doesn't feel as cohesive or interesting as the first. If your a fan of the franchise or of original horror visuals you should check it out but otherwise skip it.

   Fuck you for giving me some hope you rancid, boring, and insulting piece of shit. I hate you. Don't ever watch V/H/S.
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   I hope everyone had a good October. :D This holiday season looks pretty strong in the film department. Get hyped.