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You almost never see God, but the devil makes his presence known . . . daily

Swift shot: The Vatican does not authorize the recording of any exorcisms, this was the film’s disclaimer, and at my screening they actually had priests handing out the Prayer of Saint Christopher on little slips of paper.  Right before the film started, those same priests reminded us that while the devil is real, we have free will.  Nice touch, and it added a little bit of creepy atmosphere to the whole experience.  I wasn’t scared while watching this film; it played out as a mockumentary, and it was handled well, albeit a tad predictable in places, but I would see it again if someone else paid or once it is on cable.  Running just under 91 minutes, it had a great knack of keeping my attention the entire time and never became boring.

It’s 1989, South Hartford, Connecticut, and we are led on a police CSI type video walk-through of a crime scene of pure graphic, gory horror.  In what looks like a quaint, normal, suburb home, we see up close and personal the cadavers strewn about the house . . . all with one thing immediately in common, they are members of the clergy, or more to the point, were.  The classic film-footage was excellent, I think they may have actually borrowed some from an actual multiple slaying crime from that area and time.  It had the right amount of grain to make me think I was back in 1989.  As we see the footage, the police are escorting a frail looking house-mother into the back of a police cruiser, it’s Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley).

Now it is 2009, twenty years later, and we meet Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), who lived her life thinking her mother was deranged, but just three days before her father dies, he tells her why her mother was moved from the states to Rome, Italy.  Turns out when her mother killed all those people of the cloth, they were conducting an exorcism on Maria.  Now a young woman, Isabella is driven to find out the truth about her mother and enlists the help of a film-maker to foot the bill and capture the results of her endeavors on camera.  She hasn’t seen her mother since she was eight years old, probably just as well.

To add some substance to the documentary, film-maker, Michael (Ionut Grama) manages to get his camera in some pretty restricted areas.  Isabella and he are invited to film a session at the Vatican School for Exorcism, which was also featured in ”The Rite”.   They are permitted film access to the Centrino Hospital in Rome that now houses the disturbed Maria Rossi.  But, as her doctor explains, it has been years since her last violent outbreak, because they have a strict no religion and no excitement policy when it comes to Maria.  But, just in case, her outer cell containment area is emblazoned with several crosses.

After the class, Isabella meets two priests that are, in fact, rogue exorcists that are not sanctioned by the Vatican . . . or are they?  Father Ben (Simon Quaterman) is young and ambitious and disagrees with the Vatican’s revision to permitting exorcisms which was released in 1999, essentially it makes it impossible to exorcise anyone, because the signs needed to require an exorcism aren’t typically present until the exorcism is actually happening.  A nice little, Catch-666 if you will permit me.  His fellow rogue is Father David (Evan Helmuth) who wants to help, but he doesn’t want to sacrifice anything real to help people.  Ben wants to save the world from the devil, and Isabella just wants validation that her mom isn’t crazy, because Dissociative Identity Disorder is genetic.  So, if her mom is possessed, she won’t have to worry about being a psycho herself.

The film reminds us that there are four signs needed to declare a bona fide possession: Preternatural strength; aversion to holy relics and symbols; speaking in foreign tongues; and objects moving by themselves while near the victim.   But, while few of us know anyone who has ever been possessed, we all know of a story not too far from home where a seemingly normal person slaughters his/her whole family.  It happens especially during the holy months, so while this film didn’t scare me as I watched it, it reminded me of the real horrors people commit every day that sometimes defy science and nature.  I was reminded of the chilling Yates case, where the Texas mother violently drowned all of her children because “God told her to do it”.  Who needs Hollywood to scare you, whether the devil is real or not, people can be manipulated by all manner of forces, light and dark.  Say your prayers tonight that you don’t start hearing little voices telling you to get creative.  If you want real terror, just turn on the news for more than twenty minutes . . . you will find the devil.

The film was worth the trip, gas and ticket price, but I think it is better watched at home with some open-minded friends who scare easily, because ten minutes after the film you can roll your eyes back into your head and start speaking Latin to them . . . all the better if you have mastered climbing the walls like a cockroach.

(1 People gave this 1.00 out of 5)

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The lifeless ‘circus’ 

Swift shot: Boring, Boring, Boring, Spy.  I had just one expectation for this film . . . to be less dull and uninspired than “The Good Shepherd”, and it was actually worse!  Everyone knows that US Intelligence is by far more sexy than the stuffy Brits, so I anticipated a lot of pensive thinking and intrigue in this film, but I thought The Good Shepherd’s poor reception by critics, essentially would set the ground work for a more imaginative script.  They blew it!  Of course, without fail, Oldman becomes his character, George Smiley, but I just didn’t know enough about any of the characters, including Smiley, to give a Tinker’s damn about them.  With such an impressive cast, shame on the writers for not giving them much with which to work.

I am no fan of torture, with some exceptions, and especially not when I am the one being tortured!  And, I willingly allowed the film-makers to torture me for over two hours, ok, I will give them about 20 minutes of film-time that didn’t suck and was even brilliant in fact, but when the majority of scenes are free of dialog and driven by sympathetic introspection, not to mention tediously boring, well, that is about how I define torture.

Set in 1972-73, Control (John Hurt) has gained wind of a possible mole within the circus (AKA, the leading echelon of British Secret Intelligence) and the only person on his payroll whom he can trust, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is sent to Hungary for a meeting with one of his assets to help identify the villainous traitor.  But, as Control slips off to death, which is handled in such a bizarre, did you catch that fashion, that I almost didn’t catch it, so I am doing you the courtesy of providing that exposition free of charge.  Anyway, Control dies and a new Control assumes the position, and his greatest desire is to bring the Yanks on board to share intelligence.  Apparently, at some point in time, (at least it was implied) the Yanks found British Intelligence suspect and a “leaky ship” so the Americans have been avoiding sharing, well anything significant, with their British friends. 

Control manages to bring his trusted compatriot and former member of the circus, George Smiley into the hunt for the mole, all the while a mysterious figure from the circus’ past, a double-agent, code-named Karla is somehow involved and is believed to be the puppet-master of the mole.  George recruits the stalwart Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) who risks career, and more, to discover if there is a mole within the circus.  Personally, I thought Cumberbatch stole the whole film, because I actually believed he was his character, he and Tom Hardy, as his ‘scalp-hunter’ Ricky Tarr were the most interesting characters in the film.

Mark Strong gives a great performance as Jim Prideaux, but again, I am only guessing what his character is really all about, because the story-tellers leave so much left to the imagination that it becomes downright annoying and even condescending at times.  I understand that the action and violence was used very little to ratchet up the effect when it finally happens, I get that, but just because you don’t want to oversaturate the film with violence and action, doesn’t excuse you from using other tools at your disposal . . . say an amazing cast who could put out some excellent dialog work and build these characters!  Shame, shame, for shame!

A lot of the story-telling is left for you to guess at, which I can appreciate to a point, but when half of the audience is comatose or snoring that says a lot.  I am in favor of using my imagination, and in some cases that is preferred, but not the whole bloody film!  The story was told as if it were a true story and the film-maker was afraid to reveal anything solid about any of the characters for fear of exposing them to the enemy.  Newsflash, we are an audience, we want to be entertained, we want to know about these characters so when anything compelling happens to them we will care.  The only time I excuse that is in a balls-to-the-walls action flick, which this was so incredibly . . . not.

Look, some critics are going to say, it dazzled me with its subtlety, it was so underwhelming that it was overwhelming, to which I say, and THAT is why you are a “critic” and I am not; I am a movie lover.  I did not love this movie, in fact I couldn’t wait to get home and share with my thousands of followers and friends how much I did not like this movie.

At best this is one you should watch alone, at home, when you have some time to dissect it and not be distracted by your friends falling asleep.  It was the most un-thrilling thriller I have ever seen, even less so than “The Good Shepherd”, which is really saying something.  With this award-winning cast: Colin Firth; Gary Oldman; John Hurt; Ciaran Hinds; Mark Strong, and even Tom Hardy, I challenge you to tell me anything significant about their characters after seeing this film.  You can’t, because you never actually learn anything real about them . . . some things are revealed, but nothing of merit.  So, why would you care what happens to any of them, it’s just a story, and a poorly told story at that!

(3 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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“Next time I seduce the rich guy.”

Swift shot: Mission Improbable is a better title, or maybe Mission Incredible – as in has no credence.  I go into these types of films with a high suspension of disbelief tolerance, but when the very element that MAKES this not just a “spy film” but rather an IMF film is so poorly executed, where even one of the lead characters has the line “it was all dumb luck” – yea, dumb luck is what critics call convenient writing.  If you walk out of the film thinking anything other than “how convenient” – I challenge your level of intellectual imagination.

Whenever I watch a film where I repeat that throughout, in my head, odds are I am not impressed with the story or the writing, and Ghost Protocol is no exception.  Apparently being disavowed agents means squat to Interpol, CIA, Mossad, MI6, anyone who matters, because these jokers were flitting from country to country with nary a care in the world, all whilst being declared the greatest threat to global security since Bin Laden.  They tried to account for everything, but overall it was that dreaded convenient writing rearing its ugly head all too many times.

Still, I didn’t feel like I wasted my money, there was plenty of action and international intrigue with a bit of sex appeal to season the script.  The film was visually superb with even the opening credits offering a glimpse of what was to come. While this was produced by my favorite production studio and the Bad Robot team with many of J. J. Abrams loyal actors used throughout, the whole thing felt flat and contrived, like the whole point in making this film was to allow Tom Cruise a literal platform to scale .  . . this time the world’s tallest building.

I didn’t see MI3, and I can’t even remember much about MI2, but I did enjoy the “original” MI film when it first ran in theaters.  I guess if I had seen MI3 I would know the significance of Ethan Hunt’s wife’s untimely demise.  That seemed to be a pivotal plot point in this film, but I really didn’t care about these characters that much, even with Simon Pegg affording us a few laughs.  Jeremy Renner stood up well in his scenes with Cruise as Chief Analyst Brandt, actually playing the role of film-critic within the film.  I appreciate when film makers incorporate that element, because they are trying to answer their critics, and Brandt’s constant questions were indeed the same ones jiffy popping in my head, minus the butter, of course.

Paula Patton didn’t suck as Agent Jane, and I didn’t really find out much about Pegg’s character, Benji, if he had a back-story, it wasn’t developed at all in the theatrical release. Michael Nyqvist steps into this international cast as the evil genius, as his Millenium role is being played by the current James Bond.  It would all be surreal, if the rest of the film’s incredulity didn’t demand more attention.  In one climactic scene, Hunt is fighting with Nyqvist’s character, Hendricks, who is reported to have an IQ over 190, but they neglected to mention that this scientist also was trained in some form of martial art that Hunt can’t seem to best . . . how convenient!  And, in one of those “mask reveal” moments, they had someone pretending to be someone else that made absolutely no sense . . . period.  See if you catch it.

I am always asked, that’s great Rick, we know how you felt about the film, but what was it about?  Simply put, international genius, nutball, wants to do global damage and only the exposed and disavowed IMF “team” can stop it.  What, like you need anything else?  If you are a fan of the original series, skip this one, if you like your popcorn flicks with lots of fatty butter and want to just enjoy the action, see it!

(3 People gave this 4.67 out of 5)

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“Be careful what you fish for!”

Swift shot: Frantically paced, clever, fun, with an imaginative script.  Holmes and Watson find themselves married to their work, in more ways than one, as they match wits with the fiendishly calculating Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) across Europe.  Guy Ritchie turns in another winner this time with witty scribes Keiran and Michele Mulroney delivering an action-packed story.

The year is 1891, Europe is on the brink of a global war, anarchists and nationalists are juxtaposed as the nations amass their forces preparing for a dreadful, technological slaughter. Everyone else sees the rampant bombings of the occupiers, oops, I mean anarchists as solely anti-government loons hell bent on tearing down the establishment, but Holmes (Downey Jr.) knows better.  It doesn’t take him long to convince his astute mate, Watson (Law) that someone, a well-connected character, Moriarty may be pulling all the spiders webs, but to what end?

It isn’t like Watson wants to run around on another potentially perilous adventure with Holmes, especially considering he is finally going to wear the shackles of horrible matrimony, get married, rather.  Kelly Reilly reprises her role as Mary, soon to be Mrs. Mary Watson, unless Holmes manages to massacre her wedded bliss. On a wonderfully shot  train sequence, with close-quarters combat and all manner of ingenuity to escape death, she gets her chance to show she is worthy to marry a veteran of the Afghanistan campaign.

Mary is dispatched to let another feisty feminine join the game, Noomi Rapace (fresh off her fiery performance as Libeth Salander) assumes the role of gypsy Madam Simza, who is just as much a badass as Salander . . . she was well cast!  When we first meet her character, she is dealing with a pesky Cossack who must have cockroach DNA!  She is concerned because her brother, a dedicated anarchist, has gone missing and sent her a mysterious note.  That is how she makes Holmes’ acquaintance.

Meanwhile, Holmes’ older brother, Mycroft (clearly the Holmes parents were sadists) unveiled by the wonderfully talented Stephen Fry, is working behind the scenes to determine if his troubled kid brother is onto something real, can all these bombings across the globe somehow be connected?

Well, here is where the film fell a bit, for someone as genius as the Professor, and for someone who never leaves loose ends, he sure left enough to have Holmes very quickly surmise he was the Soros, I mean, puppet-master behind the violence and protests.

It was all a little too convenient, really.  But, I didn’t mind, because this film was every bit as much an action flick as it’s older brother from last Christmas.  Getting to the good bits might have been less cerebral than most people preferred, but I heard a few people say that the original film was “boring” – so maybe the writers decided to trim some fat to get to the action.  I won’t fault them for that, but remember, this is a Holmes film – it needs to be incredibly clever . . . it needs to dazzle with brilliance, not baffle with the typical Hollywood bullshit.  I don’t know if it was a puzzler per say.

Still, there will be surprises, you do have to pay attention, and there are things for you to try and unravel – you may find yourself wanting to watch it again, right away, just to see if you missed anything, but in the end, the great reason for Moriarty’s game left me wanting something a bit less derivative.

(1 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

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A New Muppets Film For Old Fans

Swift shot:  The Muppets are back with all their singing and dancing and of course lightning quick cameos . . . it’s a family film that will probably mean more to the aged but it was still a lot of fun for the littlest (and newest) Muppet lover in my family.  Jason Segel deserves credit for making The Muppets cool again and for giving me new Muppet memories to share with my son, as my father and I shared many Muppet memories together.

I am not a Muppet fanatic by any means, but I have always had a soft place in my heart for anything that Jim Henson created, and when he died, it devastated me, a little piece of magic, hope, and imagination died that day, so anytime a new Muppet film comes out, I am reluctant to accept it as part of the canon.  When I saw Jason Segel created a puppet opera for his aggressively funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall film, I wondered if he was a closeted Muppet fanatic – folks, the man IS a Muppet, granted a giant Muppet, but a Muppet nonetheless.  I think Jim Henson would be proud of this film.

The Muppets starts out in Smalltown, USA, a place where everyone is carefree, happy and randomly breaks out into song and dance.  This film is stuffed with plenty of frivolity, so if this is your first Muppet movie, get on board immediately or you will just sit there grousing the whole time.  Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (Walter the Muppet) are inseparable brothers who like to do just about everything together, but as Gary grows up, Walter . . .  well, he is a Muppet, you do the math.  One thing they always do together is sit in front of the TV and watch VHS tapes of the original “The Muppet Show”.  Both giant fans, when Gary decides to take his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams) who is far from a bad teacher, to Los Angeles, he invites Walter to join them in the hopes they can visit the Muppet studio together.

Once they arrive though, the studio is in ruins, the tour amounts to basically viewing the outside and paying a fee – Walter is devastated, but he manages to sneak into Kermit’s old office (which is one of the most nostalgic scenes of the film, excellent job by designer Steve Saklad for that nice touch throughout the film).  While there he overhears a business deal between the sinister Tex Richman and Statler and Waldorf who are finalizing the selling of the studio to Richman.  As far as they know, the studio is being purchased to create a museum.  They don’t know much, always too busy pitching one-liner put-downs to read the fine print.  Still, Walter realizes all is not lost, as long as the Muppets can raise ten million dollars in a week – sure, simple enough . . . enter, the scream!

Desperate to save their beloved Muppets, Walter and Gary seek out Kermit the Frog, who is constantly referred to as “Mr. the Frog” – a bit that never gets old for some reason.  The dramatic, and funny, first encounter is classic Muppet comedy, heavy on the absurd and quite punny.  Kermit is quickly on board once he realizes the fine print spells the end of all things Muppet.  The whole team, including the oft overlooked yet plucky Mary, gathers the old gang.

They manage to gather every Muppet with one piggish exception . . . yeah, Miss Piggy, who is working in Paris at Vogue – see if you can recognize her devilish secretary.  They even convince one network, due to the cancellation of Punch Teacher, to let them air a telethon to raise the money needed to save Muppet studios.  Now all they are missing is an A-list celeb, something that the original Muppet show would never have to worry about, but on such short notice, even in LA, the celebs aren’t lining up to help . . . which, if you read the production notes was the exact opposite – so many people were dying to be in this film.  Giving away the A-lister would be mean-spirited and thus, un-Muppet behavior.

Reuniting the old friends is wonderful and Walter even manages to become a bona fide Muppet, but poor Mary is never quite sure where she stands with Gary, is he a man or a Muppet?  Gary, and even Walter, struggle with that question towards the film’s finale and I’d wager America’s ‘biggest’ cameo will have you grinning and dying to tell your friends who you saw – but, again, that wouldn’t be very Muppet of you.

With original music scores by Bret McKenzie and choreography by Michael Rooney, son of Mickey Rooney, who is still ticking by the way, if Muppets movies are your thing, you won’t come out disappointed.  I don’t know if people will rush out to by the album before Christmas, but I do imagine a ton of downloads for “Man or Muppet”, by far one of the best, personally home-hitting, sequences in the film.  Heck, it may even be on par with “Rainbow Connection”.

At the end of this film, I hope you find yourself asking that same question, are you a man/woman or a Muppet, because we all need to channel our inner-Muppet from time to time, even if for only a few moments then we begin to realize that life is a happy song.  Enjoy the Muppets, you will, even if Miss Piggy isn’t Frank Oz.

(1 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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Paging Dr. Harris . . .

Swift shot: Another Liam Neeson action flick . . . but with a surreal, cerebral edge.  If you are paying strict attention, you may figure out the twist, plus it helps if you have a warped imagination.  Shot, on location, in Berlin, “Unknown” is a plausible thriller which is engaging to watch and solve.  Strong German casting complements Neeson well.  Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), “Unknown” has a fast pulse and delivers action and intrigue.

Neeson plays a scientist (Dr. Martin Harris) who is going to speak at an International Bio-Tech summit in Berlin, but in a rush, he leaves behind his briefcase with all his research and needs to leave the hotel and get back to the airport where he left it.  January Jones plays his wife, Elizabeth, who is experiencing some drama checking into the hotel, so she hardly notices him leaving.  While in the cab heading back to the airport, he crashes and wakes up in a hospital telling people he is Dr. Harris, but there is a guy who apparently already has his identity, played by Aidan Quinn, and Quinn and Elizabeth think Neeson is some shitballs, insane nut trying to convince others he is the good doctor.  Will the real Dr. Martin Harris please stand up?

Paranoia creeps up on him, as he is being hunted, and the only person he can turn to is his ill-fated cab driver, Gina (Diane Kruger) who is a bit reluctant to come out and play cabbie, now that hers is in the bottom of a lake; her boss is not pleased with her performance.  Bruno Ganz does a fabulous job as the proud former Stasi (East German Police) officer, Ernst, you all know him from the “Hitler Reacts videos” which was ripped from his work in “Downfall”.  Neeson hires Ernst to suss out his identity and to confirm the other Dr. is bending reality, or is Neeson the one who doesn’t quite have a firm grip on reality?  That is the unknown element of “Unknown”.

This film is great to rent and watch alone, without the peanut gallery (hey, we all have them) constantly blurting out-loud what they think is really going on or about to happen next.  In my crew, that role usually falls on me, so, when it comes to a thinking film, I prefer to view them solo.  Also, if I am wrong, no one can point and laugh.

If you liked “Taken”, you’ll like this one, but it isn’t (most-likely) what you are expecting.  Still, it was solid entertainment and with January Jones and Diane Kruger, it’s got some choice eye-candy in case you missed trick or treating this year.

(Give us your rating!!)

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“It’s a Code Blue-Black!”

Swift Shot: If you have been dying to have the REAL Eddie Murphy back, this one is a good jump-start to hopefully more adult features in the near future.  He doesn’t talk to animals, marry a dragon, nor cavort with an ogre [although Shrek does make a cameo], Murphy isn’t throwing his weight around in a fat suit and he doesn’t drop one F-Bomb, but still he manages to steal every scene.  But, this was a film with a pretty impressive cast even without Murphy.  Save for a few terrible accents and not quite enough raunchiness for my liking, this film handled the curves like a ’63 Lusso at Riverview!

Tower Heist is a little bit Oceans Eleven meets Horrible Bosses – you have a revenge take-down heist caper in the works, but unlike Oceans Eleven, these are hardly the Usual Suspects you would want as accomplices.  In that way, it’s a lot like Horrible Bosses, where the average Joe gets stirred up enough to commit a felony, or two, or three, I lost count – see if any of my cop friends can tally the rap sheets.

Alan Alda plays the slimy Madoff-like Arthur Shaw, or is Shaw being setup by the Feds as a corporate fall-guy?  I don’t want to give anything away, but Shaw is simply in love with himself, considers himself the master of all things business and when the time for reckoning comes, he moves his pieces around enough to confuse the best white-collar agents.  Shaw’s slave is Josh Kovacs (Stiller), a building manager completely immersed in providing perfection to the tenants of his beloved Tower. A familiar phrase of the Tower employees, “We don’t accept tips at the Tower.”  As with Towering Inferno, the Tower develops into a de facto character of the film along with one other inorganic character that helps put wheels on the script.

Josh has come to believe that Shaw has embezzled from everyone, including some people he cares very much for, so he enlists the help of a few like-minded victims of Shaw and sets out to steal about twenty million dollars, no big whoop.  Thing is, while they all have motives, they lack any criminal skills, so Josh turns to the only real criminal he knows, Slide (Murphy).  All the buildup to this eventual, erratic, full throttle “interview” with Slide is necessary to tease the audience hoping for a more Axel Foley type Murphy.  I wasn’t disappointed.

The crew of criminals is cast by Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, and eventually Gabourey Sidibe, and while they all bring a special element to the heist, some were better on screen than others.  I love freakin’ Matthew Broderick, but I kept thinking, why is he in this film, what is he really contributing?  Then, HIS scene happened and the audience was loving it!

With buddy films, a lot of character wash takes place, and no one really stands out.  Still, the chemistry was just good enough to chip away at my cynical shell and reveal some golden moments of comedy.  I particularly enjoyed the Snoopy factor and the gauntlet of lesbians.  Sorry, to get that reference you’ll have to see the film; I know most of you will eventually see it if you are pining for some old-school Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood humor.

I was impressed to see Brett Ratner directed this and Brian Grazer produced, two of my favorite film-makers, because I actually like pop-corn flicks, if I want a cerebral cinematic experience, I prefer that at home on Blu Ray where I don’t have to contend with the masses constantly pissing me off.  But, with this film, one poor bastage in the back row was laughing so uncontrollably that it sounded like a horse and a pig were makin’ bacon, which made all of us laugh even more.  So, Tower Heist had some solid laughs, albeit some poor timing by the less worthy cast-members.  If you are a film snob, you’ll catch the scenes that were just a little off.

I recommend checking out Tower Heist in theaters, it doesn’t have a lot of over-the-top action, but it does have some good cinematography that will be lost at home.  But, if you must wait til it hits stores, watch it with a friend who really loves Eddie Murphy!

(1 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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“This isn’t Casper!”

Swift Shot:  I guarantee you at least three screams.  Using that same, what I call, the “Where’s Waldo” effect, where you have to keep looking at seemingly mundane footage and trying to essentially figure out what, if anything, is off, missing, or wasn’t there before.  This was the scariest, and probably most interesting, of the films to date.  And, they left room for even more story-telling.  Somehow this stuff never gets old, and the creators manage to deliver more surprises!  Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Michael Landon’s kid, Christopher B. Landon wrote this thing – and that it was pretty terrifying!!

[Swift note, spoke to Aceman today and asked him if he had seen any of the films, "Yea, and at first I wasn't impressed, nor scared, but then, much later, it was with me, and I couldn't get it out of my head."  I told him, "Well, this one is scary AS you watch it AND it stays with you well after you see it."]

PA3 – as the cool kids are calling it – is set primarily in 1988, in September, where we see old VHS tapes of young Katie having a birthday then things start to go all Paranormal Activity!  Well, it isn’t quite that simple, things need time to develop.  Katie and Kristi are just little munchkins, living with their mother Julie and her boyfriend, Dennis, a struggling wedding videographer.

Julie and Dennis are likable characters, in fact, they reminded me a lot of Micah and Katie from the first Paranormal Activity – their dialogue was genuine, funny and helped the audience connect with them on several levels.  Plus, this was set in the 80′s, so if you are a fan of Family Guy, and few aren’t, you’ll love seeing some old “friends” and 80′s nostalgia nods on screen.  Heck, I want to see the film again just to see how many old toys I recognize.

Kristi is the younger kid, so she is still more apt to have a wild imagination, and she claims to have a friend, Toby that only she can see and hear.  It’s frustrating having this friend, because no one really believes he is real . . . or maybe no one wants to admit he is real.  Dennis is intrigued, and much like Micah, can’t leave well enough alone.  One night when he experiences an incredibly rude (you’ll see what I mean) earthquake, he notices something in reviewing the footage that he has to share with his co-worker and friend, Randy.

Even Randy thinks there is something to this that can’t be explained, and he encourages Dennis to try and record more strange phenomena.  Dennis, like a dumb-ass, does.  He manages to convince Julie to let him place some cameras around the house, and there we have the set-up we all expect with these films.  Because this was a videographer using his own equipment, at home, I was more immersed than the stilted, security camera footage from the previous film.  The second Paranormal Activity was good, but this was so much better!

Do you remember Gramma Lois?  No?  She is in this film, front and center, and while she liked Dennis, she reminds Julie that he has no real job or prospects and is just using her for her money.  It is never made clear what Julie does for a living, if anything, but Gramma Lois supports her daughter’s decision to stay with Dennis.

Using classic horror film elements, like the teeny-bopper babysitter, Lisa, who looked like she was Debbie Gibson’s biggest fan, this film even managed to be clever without being cheesy.  That’s hard to do.  Her scenes contain at least one of your “guaranteed screams”.  Then, Dennis’ friend Randy manages to pull out a classic Halloween game that you should really never toy around with.  In fact, if there are any lessons from the Paranormal Activity films, probably the best lesson is “Don’t meddle with things you don’t understand, nor know how to vanquish!”  Anyone who has ever had a paranormal encounter of their own probably already learned this lesson the hard way!  Randy certainly did!

[I just heard a noise in my closet, and I am fairly certain it wasn't Tom Cruise]

You’ll love this film like a roller-coaster, it will scare you, and at times you will laugh at yourself for being scared, but ultimately . . . scared is what you will be, particularly if you have a keen imagination.

Finally, when the credits roll, you’ll wonder just whom, or what, was watching this footage.  If you paid attention, the answer is eerily obvious.  If you are a fan of the other two films, you needn’t hear from me that you will like this one as well, it delivers to its fan base . . . and then some!  In fact, some people that I knew didn’t care for the other two actually said this one was the best of the three.  I only hope they have at least one, or two, more films to release.  I will be there, assuming I heed the film’s warnings and steer clear of the “intriguing”.  Where did I put that tripod?

(1 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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Funny thing about trust . . . it melts in the presence of real terror.

Swift shot:  Terror is back!  Everything you ever wanted in a sci-fi horror flick . . . plus Norwegians! Fear and paranoia grips everyone; you’ll be guessing who “The Thing” is the whole film!  There are some grandiose shots, excellent special effects, but nothing is so over the top that it dwarfs the sequel’s efforts.  (The sequel shot in 1982)

Set in the early 80′s, like John Carpenter’s classic, this new film serves as a direct, seamless prequel to that incredibly fascinating, yet disturbing, feature. Based on a pulp novella written in 1938 by John W. Campbell, Jr., “Who Goes There” has now inspired three films.  I must confess, I have yet to see the 1951 film “The Thing From Another World” – which focused more on the Cold War according to my production notes.

Believe it or not, for many complicated reasons, I had never seen John Carpenter’s “The Thing” until this year!  Some film lover, right?  But, I am glad I waited, because I was primed for the prequel and intrigued with how a Dutch commercial director, Matthijs van Heijningen, was going to take a film set in the 80′s, release it in 2011, and make it all make sense without creating special effects that would be considered over the top by 1982′s standards.

The plot is basic, but the story is not.  Plot – alien crashes on Earth and chills out for a few hundred thousand years, wakes up with a mean hangover and an ability to mimic foes.  The story though is about the characters slowly, or rapidly in some instances, devolving into creatures of fear themselves.  Abject paranoia ultimately leads to carnage and lots of crispy critters.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) led the cast with a startling performance as Kate Lloyd, a paleontologist who is offered the adventure of several lifetimes.  Initially, she is told only that she needs to make up her mind immediately and that the assignment is in Antarctica. Her invitation comes from one snarky, pompous Dr. Sander Halvorson who is played perfectly by Ulrich Thomsen, as you want to punch him square in the face several times throughout the film.  That’s all you need out of an actor, make the audience either love, loathe, or otherwise believe they are their character.  To whit, Thomsen deserves my respect – because I hated the man!

With a lot of these horror films, you get the typical walking cord-wood characters, lacking depth, little exposition and really only around so the leads don’t “get it” too early.  That is probably my only real fault with the film, many of the characters were exactly as I just described, pointless bags of flesh just waiting to die and/or become the Thing.  Still, some of them had more personality than others.  I’m no great fan of Eric Christian Olsen, but he was decent as the facilitator to put Kate in the story, after that not much is ever revealed about him.

With all these Norwegians running around you might think this film was subtitled throughout – yes, and no.  I really liked the clever use of Norwegian when it was convenient to hold secret council in front of other non-Norsk characters.  It was well deployed without being over used and gave more of that “trust no one” sense in those scenes. To make sure the whole film wasn’t just a bunch of drunk Norwegians running around starting fires, there were two American pilots in the camp.  Braxton Carter, played by Australian actor Joel (Owen Lars, anyone?) Edgerton [currently starring in "Warrior"] and Jameson played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost, Oz) who serves as Carter’s co-pilot.

The camp is headed by a turtle-neck clad Edvard Wolner, played by Norwegian actor Trond Espen Seim.  Odds are you haven’t seen him in anything, mindre du er Norsk?  Yea, I didn’t think so.

Everyone is afraid of something, maybe this Thing will keep you up at night . . . I know it would if I lived in Antarctica, for sure!  The effects are terrifying, on the same scale of purely horrifying creature sequences from Carpenter’s work.  You will not be disappointed; nothing looks overtly CGI, and the scenes where the Thing is pursuing its victims might just have your butt puckering ever so slightly.  Case in point, some deficient assbag in front of me (wearing a NY Jets hat, no less) kept talking out loud to his friend when shit started getting just a little too intense . . . pussy.  He was trying to remove himself from the film, I mean, need I say anymore?  A film that demands you separate from it so you don’t get too damaged . . . that’s a solid film!

Like all the other Things out there, this film focuses on paranoia – I read a quote from producer Eric Newman that I wanted to share here, “More than ever, we live in a time where if there is an enemy, it’s very likely that the enemy’s not someone you would suspect. The bad guys don’t wear uniforms anymore.”  This is the purest message about paranoia vs. trust and while the Cold War may be over, we are in a new war . . . a war on Terror, so fitting that “The Thing” is a metaphor for the old adage, trust no one and carry a large flame-thrower!

“The Thing” is definitely not for everyone, it’s scary, because . . . shit, it could be true, you don’t know!  How many of you have explored every square inch of our planet and aren’t we learning about new undiscovered species on a daily basis . . . still, in 2011?  I think what I overheard while leaving the theater sums it up beautifully, when a woman, probably in her mid-seventies, turned to her husband, “We need a flame-thrower now!”  This film is best viewed in theaters, because the effects and professional attention to detail simply demand it!

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