Videodrome
[ 2 stars out of 4 ]
It's a shame because this film stared off very well. During its first fifteen minutes, it was able to swiftly and astutely state its hypothesis and relate it to its audiences. Even though it was released in 1983, two subjects that are seemingly disparate--sex and violence--are more relevant today than ever. The picture was able to take those two things and combine them in multiple scenes to show that their effects are not as different as most people think. It makes a commentary regarding how much people can take before they become desensitized or maybe even dehumanized by the media's images. Although the acting may have been on the weaker side and the special effects are dated, the concept makes up for it. What makes this really flawed is that it wasn't able to keep the kind of great focus it had in a beginning. About forty minutes into it, I wanted to do or watch something else. The last twenty minutes were typical and maybe even predictable in many respects. It became another head trip that could easily be forgotten once it passed. Still, I'm not against recommending this film to people who care more about the concept than the story because the ideas and horrifying images are truly original.
Prestige, The
[ 2 stars out of 4 ]
When I saw this movie for the first time, I didn't like it because I thought the ending was a big head-scratcher. After seeing it for the second time, I liked it a little bit more (although not by much) because I knew which hints to look for that will eventually justify the twist ending. My problem with this movie is not the acting, the pacing, or its ideas. My problem with it is the writing. If they were going to make a movie about magic tricks, the writing should stay grounded in reality from start to finish because, that way, the audience won't feel cheated. Adding science fiction into the mix is a big no-no because that would mean anything goes, which means the whole magic storyline is down the toilet. The filmmakers might as well have put aliens trying to invade the world into the movie for the sake of being random. Apart from that, this movie has one twist after twist after twist... until I started to get a headache. Watching more attentively the second time, I also realized that the story is somewhat convoluted to the point of suffocation. There were just so many frustrating pieces that had no role or didn't seem to fit in the bigger picture. If one wants a better movie about magic tricks, I recommend "The Illusionist" instead.
Diary of the Dead
[ 1 star out of 4 ]
There's nothing scary about this movie. Throughout the picture, I feel like the actors were a bunch of amateurs who are going for camp more than anything; since their characters weren't convincingly scared, the audience, too, weren't scared. The social commentaries felt beyond forced and heavy-handed to the point where I thought, "Enough already! I get what you're trying to say about the media. Now, give us solid thrills!" But the commentaries weren't just about the media. It covers issues such as racism, feminism, dependence on technology, anarchy, terrorism... I like that the picture has ideas, but in this instance, the ideas overwhelmed the script and the story. I didn't get to know the characters so I didn't care what would happen to them. You'd think that a film by George Romero would be good or even borderline great because he is very capable of producing films that are truly scary. This is a big unfortunate exception because everything felt so out of place and pointless. Maybe the problem are the zombies as well. After "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later," slow-moving zombies just don't pump up the scares anymore.
