It Comes At Night

      Walking into the movie theater to buy a ticket. While turning into the next line aisle, I look up and see this elderly man with black eyes and black goo drooling from his mouth. "YES! Another demon movie!"

     This was pretty much my reaction for the It Comes At Night poster, my first introduction to this movie. As I started watching this movie, much to my surprise, this is no demon/supernatural movie. Just an pretty basic unexplored virus, and when the movie ended, I was so engaged by the more important element of this movie that I didn't care about this disease. The human condition of destroying ourselves and nothing reveals this condition more than the point of surviving. If the Walking Dead's premise is the perfect model of how humanity can survive, needed one another and working together in the darkest of times, then It Comes At Night is the total opposite. This movie is pretty much a harsh warning against the disconnecting of the human element of caring for others and growing in a community. However, in the beginning, the steps the main character took  to keep his family safe was understandable, but at the end of the movie, I'm asking myself, what's the purpose surviving when you can lose everything from completely cutting off strangers, instead of growing friends, while still being cautious.

     I really enjoyed this movie. Joel Edgerton was great and the actor playing his son reminded me a lot of myself. The dream sequences were directed perfectly. I liked how all the horror moments in the movie took place within these dream sequences, and the rest of the movie was more of a intense experience.  

MORGAN

Morgan

The Checklist for a bad movie

--Spoilers

Synopsis- A group of socially awkward scientist create a special that gets loose and kills. Done.

Problem Checklist-

   1. The best of these types of films start off with a creature being nice and sweat from the start and then turns evil.

        In the opening, you see Morgan stab a scientist in the eye. So, you already know there's no doubt that she's screwed up. Since when is snapping a dying deer's neck signs of pure evil.

 2. Enter Kate Mara. The problem in itself. Rooney's much better.

 3. She seems very stoic with a funny haircut. Sweepstake giveaway for the twist of the movie.

 4. Enough with the hoodie look. After Killer Croc, that look is unbearable for anyone.

 5. This movie needed more Paul Giamatti chewing.

 6. What is wrong with this science team? There negligence towards properly handling Morgan is laughable. One minute they want to save her, while acknowledging that's she malfunctioned. Next minute they want to terminate, while realizing the same thing.  

 7. Kate Mara Vs Poor Man's Ex Machina- I believe both of these actresses did the all the fighting scenes without a double. If that is the case, they ruined it with the close up fighting.

8. Bullshit Twist-Kate Mara= Terminator

Solutions-

1. The fact that Morgan is the least interesting character in this movie shows the title needs a change.

Palms.

2.  Weathers(Kate Mara) storyline just felt like a character thrown into the screenplay at the final draft, which is probably the only reason this screenplay made the Black List of Best Unproduced Screenplays in 2014. Needed a another rewrite to give this character a better flow. I understand you want her to be surrounded in mystery, but you need to give her some appetizer to make the main course all the more sweater. Anyway the twist to so obvious it needed no piecing together.

3. Drop the cotton hoodie.

4. The science team should've been the true villains of the movie. They at least felt like it. There fight to break Morgan was what kept my interest in the movie, unfortunately they disappointed me going the familiar route of the creature attacking it's creator avenue. Morgan's turn to full on evil mode came out of nowhere and never made since. I know she was being built as a weapon, but why bother giving her certain emotions that a weapon shouldn't have.

5. Only time Zoom In fights are good is when they are tactical. Knife or gun grappling. But when it's just a good ole slobberknocker, zoom out, please.

6.The twist was all wrong. You want a twist for this movie? Here. Weathers(Kate Mara), instead of actually being a humanoid herself, she should've really just been a well-trained, Jason Bournesque human. That would've really been saying something. A powerful being manufactured from a collection of brilliant minds, taken down by high endurance human operative, proving James Bond's point about no matter how advance the world gets in technology, there nothing more superior than a cold and calculating human as your go to trigger woman/man.

Final Evaluation: If you see a deer in pain, don't snap it's neck, because you will become the devil.

Global Ruining of Film

Epidemic #1

     American Sniper breaking opening day for January.

Reasons

-American sniper opened in December. 

- films such as Taken 3 and Ride along which actual release was January did not have any previous limited viewings for any buzz going in like American Sniper

- American Sniper is the only film ever to be a top grossing film for January, that was released in December, regardless of if it was limited, which is some Bullcrap 

Conclusion

Ride Along, a film released in January, is still number film of the month.

CASE CLOSED

Does Wesley Snipes even have a chance of making a Comeback

First off, forget about Blade. He will never get that back. Expendables franchise is pretty much dead, unless the Chinese market was a big help. Hopefully, he doesn't get a role for another CSI spinoff. It's all over if I see him in a trailer for a Tyler Perry flick. He seems like he doesn't want to get away from action hero roles. I just see this guy following the footsteps of Nic Cage.

My small March

Sabotage

The Good:  Admitting halfheartedly, Sabotage is Arnold's best since coming from retirement. He seems like he's gotten over the fact that he's not the immense, muscle bound, box office phenomenon who rips through the bad guys with big guns and one liners like he once was. I noticed some reinvention going on the part of Arnold, taking on a teaching role. David Ayer continues to impress with his stylistic gun fights and gritty scenes, while continuing on his saga of exploring departments of law enforcement.

The Bad: Even though David Ayer films astonishes with it's adrenaline, he continues on with these bland and sometimes confusing story plots. One minute, this movie's a whodunnit and then it all of sudden turns into a revenge plot in a most sloppy transition. Also, the characters, like in most Ayer films, are the most one dimensional,GI Joe-like misfits I've ever seen. Well, except for End of Watch, which was probably the only Ayer story with fleshed out characters. No, Alonzo Harris, not you either. Although, I will say, Sabotage has the most unlikeable characters, minus two, in any Ayer film.

The Ugly: In Sabotage, you can really sense Arnold wants to reinvent himself, through his determination to act his butt off in every scene that he's in. With that said, let's not forget Arnold Schwarzenner is a horrible actor, which seems like that will never change. His diligence to being on point is nothing against the inevitability of a syndrome of poor performance. I guess that's what so sad about it. He's willing to change but now that he's going into a character that leads and mentors others, it sort of requires a higher quality of acting. Now, he'll never be a Anthony Hopkins, but Sean Connery took on these roles after his Bond career was up and did just fine. Also, Connery is not great actor, so there is a slimmer of hope of Arnold but not with Sabotage, especially when his character is written as a corrupt asshole, who has no sign of leadership qualities, where his unit almost just walks all over him. I mean he has absolutely no control over these guys.

Outcome: With all the Bad and Ugly, this movie is really fun, gory and filled with great action scenes. When Olivia Williams and Harold Perrineau make they're appearances, the movie gets even better.

Noah

Welcome back, Russell Crowe. Best performance in a long time. Rarely, do I see films adapted from books done so creatively. Great movie.

Robots, Volcanoes, and Airplanes- You know it's FEBRUARY 2014.

Robocop

 For a while, I use to believe that remakes, specifically re-imaginings, were so harmless. Then, 2007 came around with the remake to Halloween. In conversations, I can no longer just say Halloween is one of my favorite horror movies; now, I have to specify using the word "original". However, this could all just be left alone if the remake of an original would be good, but in the case of Halloween, I can't. The same can be said for Robocop. Word of advice: when trying to give an material a soul, it can be easy to misidentify soul with melodrama. If there is anything this remake has over the original, it is it's obsession with tears, crying, and overacting speeches. Also, the original has more soul, and it's magnificently more up to date with the world today than this remake garbage. Robocop (2014) tried bringing a belief of depth into this movie, by bringing in the family element, great actors, made Lewis a guy, and made some key changes to the Murphy character. Sounds good, right? The wife character is just in the way. I never thought I would ever say this but Samuel L. Jackson was such a nuisance in this; they replaced the great commercials from the original with boring exposition that in the end is truly meaningless. Lewis did absolutely nothing. The city of Detroit, which I this time would have great to capitalize on, was completely ignored. Like I said, the original, even as old as it was, still captures Detroit's state, today. Side notes: This movie is PG-13 and replaces Robo's flesh tearing Auto 9 with some high tech taser gun, WEAK! I would not buy this for a dollar.

           Pompeii

Good mashup of disaster and gladiator genres. Keifer Sutherland was a joy to watch as the villain, even though his accent was terrible. Paul W.S. Anderson continues with his great visuals. If your going to see this, the theaters is the best place.

Non-Stop

The first half of this movie is fantastic and heart-pounding. Second half, things just get crazy and becomes a typical Neeson ass kicking movie, which is nothing bad. Loved this movie.

Small Beginnings of January

Devil's Due

Typical found footage with the potential to be better if they would have put some real money into it. If your going to do a found footage movie, you should a least recognize your plot before making the budget. Project X and Cloverfield are two found footages that kept they're plot in mind when making the budget. Not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

I Frankenstein

I'm still trying to figure out if it's a good or bad thing that this movie tries so hard to be like Underworld, except for the CG, where the computer generated werewolves in Underworld looked ten times better than the CG gargoyles. The fights scenes kept this movie from being a total disaster. Decent.