You Gave Me Such a Fright Night!

Shall I start this by saying I was not going to review this film. No intention whatsoever. I mainly planned on seeing it to celebrate David Tennant's first major Hollywood role and so I dragged along a good friend and off we went, donning our "Real-D" glasses. It soon became apparent that not only was I going to review this film, but I am duty-bound to do just that.

For those of you who didn't see or ever hear of the first one, this is a vampire movie! Spoiler. The vampires are not very nice. And head vampire Jerry (Colin Farrell) has moved in right next door to our hero, Charlie (Anton Yelchin). To save his mother (Toni Collette) and girlfriend (Imogen Poots), Charlie seeks the help of Peter Vincent (David Tennant), who is sort of a Criss Angel parody. And so the match is set, the war waged, and off we are on a lovely little adventure!

Every film starts with a script, and the writing of Fright Night is tight knit and funny. On more than one occasion I found myself first stricken with laughter and then suddenly heart all a flutter in suspense in a lovely sort of dance. Pacing was right on and everything fits tidily into 106 minutes. 

The actors fully absorb the words and make them their own; not a bad performance out of the lot. And keep your eye open for a certain Franco's younger brother and the original Jerry. The characters aren't exactly multi-dimensional, but they're nicely fleshed out for the genre. Yelchin constructs a strong but sensitive kid trying to define who he is and is opposed nicely by Farrell's self-centered, creepy vamp-tramp king. 

Supporting cast are all a riot - Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes an appearance as Ed, a childhood friend Charlie left behind, and David Tennant is endearing and pretty hilarious as the scallawag with a haunted past. And a shoutout for my ladies! Toni Collette is lovely as usual portraying a mother who refreshingly pays attention to her son and Imogen Poots takes what could have been a standard "oh I'm a frightened teen girl" to the girl you want her to be.

All in all, this is a nice little feather for director Craig Gillespie's odd hat. And this brings me to why I'm reviewing this. I wrote this film off for a few reasons. First of all, it's been released at the end of the summer against no real competition. Second, it was not released at Halloween. Third, given both those things, the film hasn't done well. And what a shame! I think the distributors made a real mistake not holding out for a Halloween release. What fun it'd be to stay up late and go get scared with this movie in the autumn frenzy of All Hallow's Eve! This is my attempt to save this movie - GO SEE IT!

8/10

Who Are You (Who, Who)

So I'm breaking from the normal critique to give you folks an editorial tonight. With the second half of series six of Doctor Who premiering this coming Saturday on BBC America, I thought it'd be fun to share my thoughts on the different Doctors. For the sake of brevity, we'll just be focusing on the two most recent.

There's the constant question. Which Doctor is better, best, more likable. They are constantly being compared to each other. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. When the Doctor regenerates, yes he changes physically, but there's very clearly psychological change that takes place. And let's think about it this way - if you died, something would change about you too. You might be grateful, pissed, resentful, overjoyed, relieved. About a million different emotions go into it.

Working chronologically, when David Tennant's Doctor arrives, we find him re-awakened. Christopher Eccleston's portrayal is sardonic, angry, and in a lot of denial about the events of the Time War. By the time he regenerates to Tennant, we find that he's moved on to deep sorrow balanced out by a brilliantly curious quirkiness. This is a Doctor who grins like he means it. He says things like "alonzi," eager for plain fun adventure. He handles his foes with less anger and more of a controlled contempt for violence than anything.

Through three seasons, we peel away the layers of this Doctor who thoroughly enjoys life. We find that beneath his jovial exterior beat two very feeling hearts. By making himself more amiable, more accessible to love, he's made himself more open to heartbreak as well. He constantly must tear open the wounds in order to save the people he loves, right to the very end. And that's the kind of thing that changes a man...or Time Lord. Towards the end, we see the Doctor trying to figure out exactly who and what he is, and in one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the show, he's not ready to leave when it's his time to go. He's not done; but it's time.

And so Tennant's Doctor dies and Matt Smith's Doctor is born from the ashes. (This is also the point when the Doctor Who torch is passed on from Russel T. Davies to Steven Moffat, so obviously writing styles are different and things will change. I do not wish to compare these writers; I think they're both great and accomplish(ed) different things with their work.) Right away, there's something a bit mad about him. It's no longer quirky, it's aloof bordering on insanity. And then there's the anger. I personally think the madness is a defense mechanism, hiding the anger deep away inside. If he can deflect long enough, maybe he won't think about all the pain he endured so recently to save his beloved planet Earth. But that anger sits just below the surface - do anything to make it bubble through and instantly regret it.

A line Matt Smith repeats, "Never had that before," seems to be apt for the changes present in this Doctor. He's never been quite this angry, quite this vengeful, or confrontational. He's lost the people he loves before and now heaven help anybody who comes between him and his companions. I think if this wasn't balanced out with Matt Smith's incredible ability to act like a six year old and nine hundred year old at the same time, we'd lose our affection for him from time to time. He pushes the limits sometimes, but hey, the best heroes do.

So for all those imdb message board trolls going, "Tennant is way better, bring him back," or "No, you suck monkey brains, Matt Smith is the best ever," let's all try and remember that you're basically trying to compare performances of two different characters. And that never really works. So just enjoy them both and get on with enjoying this fantastic show.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Thursday turned out to be a lovely day to roll out the very tiny red carpet and check out The Help at the local theatre. I won't say I was chomping at the bit to see this film, but I was very intrigued. The film, set in 1960's Mississippi, centers around a young writer nicknamed Skeeter (Emma Stone) and her series of interviews with the black maids in her town. She and he co-conspirators (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) meet in secret to reveal the horrific racism of the white housewives in Jackson. Despite this, its clear these maids truly love the white children they care for as much as their own children, for whom they desire only better than they had.

The film is built on strong female characters, from lead to supporting. Emma Stone embraces this dramatic role with maturity and a healthy amount of sass. It's definitely a new page in her book, which up until now has been primarily comedic. The relationships between her and the other women of the film  bind the main story to its subplots, so it's important that they work. The hint of a good friendship going slowly sour with her and Bryce Dallas Howard, the sense that she never quite pleased her mother, and the building of trust between her and Viola Davis - it all builds and builds the film and fleshes out even the minor characters.

The supporting cast charms their way through the film. Octavia Spencer is absolutely hilarious as Minny and Sissy Spacek is lovable as Bryce Dallas Howard's mother. Everyone seems to 'fit' in the world - it's all very real and embedded.

From a production standpoint, the film was very well done. Solid editing, beautiful photography, and great production design. All of these things being said, there is still something holding the film back from being truly amazing.

It's a good film, even a great one perhaps, garnering it's strength from its subtlety. But it's almost a little too quiet, too reserved. I wanted these women to really conquer and conquer something evil. I am not a fan of meaningless violence, but when it serves the story, especially when that story is historical fiction, I think violence has it's place. These people actually suffered. A lot. And most of us watching this film aren't really going to understand what they went through and what they overcame. You can hint at it and talk about it, but the only way to draw a truly powerful emotional response is to show us, without shame.

7.5/10

The Rest Is Silence

For those of you who know me lately, I have been on what one might call a kick. Perhaps mild obsession. Whatever you want to call it, ever since my good friend showed me this damn amazing show I have been tracking down whatever I can find starring David Tennant.

As a filmmaker, this tends to be what I do whenever I find an artist that I admire so I've been down this road before (Stanley Kubrick, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DaVinci). In some cases (not naming names), it has brought me to low and lonely places. Not so in the grand adventures of Mr. Tennant! And my latest discovery was buying Hamlet on blu-ray. This particular film is an adaptation of the stage production of the same, including original cast.

So some background: I am a huge Shakespeare fan and Hamlet is my absolute favourite of his plays. I am picky, so I prepare myself to be let down when I watch new adaptations. I don't subscribe to any of the "insanity" or "oedipal" bullshit that's surfaced in the last century and the play makes me extremely emotional. Since I am a woman, this also makes me lethal, so don't fuck with m Hamlet.

All that being said, I delved right in! There is a wonderful dark neutrality about the set, mirroring the darkness set upon young lord Hamlet. Mirrors themselves, playing a pivotal role in the stage version, are rampant throughout the set design - the broken mirror a classic representation of the fractured mind. The director utilizes the camera well with the soliloquies and asides and presents us with many interesting angles and some gloriously long takes.

But the performances, you ask! Okay, as unbiased as I can possibly be... David Tennant was absolutely stunning and heartbreaking in this. I think I would die to see the stage production, because his emotion was so incredibly raw yet subtle, cutting through the fancy words to what the character truly feels. He also plays with the comedy more than I'd seen before, and I thought that was a stroke of genius. It fleshed out Hamlet so he's not so mopey; he's lively and witty and yet full of pain. He captures the essence of the character that I related to so well upon first reading it while going through a loss of my own. Just, bravo. Bravo, Mr. Tennant!

And bravo to Patrick Stewart! I always figured that no matter what, he'd always be Professor X and Captain Picard to me, or possibly this guy. But it's now resolved - if I ever, ever meet this amazing man, I will thank him profusely for acting the hell out of Claudius. Trust me folks, it's all in the ending and the rest is a fantastic journey up to it.

And the supporting cast completely keeps up pace. Penny Downie's Gertrude made me feel for that woman for the first time ever and Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius was charming. Basically, I have no complaints in the acting at any point in the film. I can't even say that about Branagh's version!

Not to gloss over it too much because these guys do hard work, but briefly I have to acknowledge the other departments. The DP did a great job with lighting and handling all the mirrored sets. I thought the editing was great! I did notice a few hiccups in the sound, but I'm overtrained and overlistening for the most part.

10/10

Sir, There's a Firefly in My Soup

Okay, so I realize I'm late to this whole Firefly thing. The show was cancelled way before it's time by this crackerjack organization, and my friends have been bugging me for probably about four years to check out the show. Well, now I finally have decided to see what all the gorram fuss was about.

So by the end of the first episode, I was entertained but not blown away. But entertained is certainly enough for me to stick with it so I had the joy of watching these characters develop over the next fourteen episodes. There was clearly a lot of thought put into the creation of this "verse" - backstory leaks through constantly, peaking curiosity and embedding this sci-fi world into a reality.

China and the US merged to form one ginormous superpower, where you're either apparently high class society or a cowboy. The melding of the two societies was done very well and we come into the story quite a bit down the line. Earth that was has long since been uninhabitable and so the US/China Alliance went out into the galaxies and found new planets for everyone to exist all happy-like. They use a process called terraforming to convert the new rocks into environments as close to Earth as possible, but they can't seem to make much more than water and desert.

Our characters are fronted by the snarky (Joss Whedon specialty) but likeable Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reyonds, who fought against the Alliance in a great war. Zoe, Mal's Amazonian-esque righthand woman, fought with him and has stuck by his side ever since. Her husband, Wash (my personal favourite character), pilots Mal's ship, Serenity. He is aided by engineer, Kaylee, a sweet young thang who has a crush on Simon, an uppercrusty fugitive. Simon constantly nurses his sister, River, who's brain has been addled by the Alliance in a way nobody is quite sure of. The main gunslinger of this band of misfits is Jayne, played adorably by Adam Baldwin (NOT a Baldwin brother, I might add). And where would they be without god? Shepherd Book is this future's version of a priest, though there are hints he may be something more. Meanwhile, Mal rents out one of Serenity's shuttles to a "companion," Inara, who seems to be a futuristic version of a geisha.

So this cuddly band of thieves get themselves into all sorts of adventures. And here's what I'll say about them. I do not think this was the best show ever, as many claim. I do think it was a great show, a show that should NOT have been cancelled (remember, retarded company), and it's a show with great characters and a lot of emotion.

P.S.
SPOILER ALERT

All that said, one thing really bugged me. They cancelled this damn show before we got to see Mal and Inara get it on, and that's just not cool. That damn sexual tension was practically fogging up the inside of my tv. Also, major spoiler for the Serenity movie here, they killed Wash. He was my favourite. He played with dinosaurs and was freakin' hilarious. Joss Whedon, take note, you are officially on my shit list. But you're also damn talented, so cheers.

A Change of Pace

I've been using this blog mostly to rant. I have good reason to want to rant but haven't posted in a while because I felt ranted out. Now, at the encouragement of someone close to me, I'm going to try my hand at being an amateur movie critic.

I've always prided myself on being able to make recommendations for people that they might never have thought of before but are sure to love. If things pick up, I might go into full time critic mode and post my opinions on all the latest flicks. But for now, we'll start small.

I will post my first review tomorrow, and I'll be just tickled if anybody who reads this blog has even heard of it (me telling you previously does NOT count).