Look in any Entertainment magazine for the last few years and you will see this film under the "coming soon" section. The director had a problem getting the studio to release the picture that he wanted to be released instead of the western-shoot 'em up that they wanted. After much fighting from director Andrew Dominik and producer Brad Pitt, they released the version they originally shot. Once it was released there were mixed reviews some calling it overly long and others calling it a masterpiece.
This is the story of all the events in Jesse James' (Brad Pitt) life leading up to his murder by Robert Ford (Casey Affleck). It starts after James' last train robbery where they re-cruited a band of rag tag robbers to take over a train in this group is Charlie (Sam Rockwell) and Robert Ford (Casey Affleck). From the first moments we see that Robert Ford is obsessed with his heroes. He idolizes Jesse James and desparately wants to be like him. He knows all the similarities and he is just a slimey bag of uncertainty and want. We are also introduced to James in this scene and he is extremely charismatic and we know why he is the stuff the legends are made of. Throughout the film though we see James' decent into paranoia and Casey Afflecks realization that this god, is simply a man.
This is wonderfully portrayed by the two leads of the film: Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. I love Brad Pitt, I feel that he and George Clooney are the closest we have to the hey-days of old classic cinema. Brad Pitt is once more incredibly awesome in this film, even though he is sort of just playing a toned down version of Tyler Durden in this. He is cool, calm, but at the right times, he just snaps. There is one scene that exemplfies his paranoia and explosive personality. We also see him casually except that his life is soon going to be coming to and end and probably by Bob Ford. Casey Affleck, simply, this is his year. He stole "Ocean's 13" and is supposed to be incredibly good in "Gone Baby Gone." This role though, this is his Raging Bull role. The perfect matching of actor with role. We see his disdain of how Jesse James treats him and how this hero of his is just a man. He starts out with an underlying feeling of uncertainty that grows to the realization that to be what Jesse James is, which is what he clearly wants, that he has to do something more infamous than anything James' has done. He has to kill the unkillable: he has to kill Jesse James.
Their relationship actually invokes a very biblical relationship of Jesus and Judas. In fact, this is very much a religious metaphor of the film: Jesse James is a god to the American people and here comes this man who he sort of trusts. Then Ford decides to sell out to the law. The point is also driven even more to the point during a scene where James walks on a frozen lake speaking about suicide.
This was only Dominik's second film and he has created a very worthwile film that was worth it to fight for. In parts it is a revenge film, in parts it is a character study. He knows right where to put the camera and every scene is beautifully composed and the frame is always a treat to look for. Now, the criticism about this film being overly long is valid at some points. There are a few scenes that seem to go on a minute too long and you begin to be bored (this is a very rare occassion) and he cuts to the next scene making us compelled again. The problem is that these could have simply of been tightened up by trimming seconds off of some angles, but it is a rare occasion where it drags. It doesn't matter anymore once it gets to the fantastic assassination scene. He plays it like a classic Leone mexican stand off, except James doesn't have any weaponry and it is only sounds that would naturally exist in the room. The rattling of Ford's terrorfied gun. The slight breeze from the snow. It is an exceptionally crafted scene..
In fact, this is a very well crafted film that wants to be a masterpiece so badly but just falls short into being the best movie I've seen so far this year, and not the great american masterpiece which it tries to be. Of course, if Casey Affleck doesn't get an Oscar-nomination for this film he will be criminally robbed (not saying he should win yet, but he definately deserves a nod). I'm extremely glad I saw this movie in theaters, as I thought I would only be able to see it on DVD because of the limited release. Definately a great film, but only for people who can sit down and take in everything they are seeing.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Across the Universe
During the early days of The Beatles they released three movies, a cartoon show, a documentary about their unraveling and music that changed the world of rock and roll. Undeniably the most influential band on modern rock, The Beatles are legendary. always turning out good work and breaking up before they had a chance for things to go down hill.
Then, in the late 80's the rights of the songs fell out of the hands of McCartney and the rest of The Beatles and found themselves into the hands of Michael Jackson. MJ is fast for selling any Beatle song anybody wants to use very cheaply. This made it easy for Julie Taymor (Director of "Titus", "Frida" and the stage version of "The Lion King") to make this movie which is all about how many "Beatles" songs you can cram into one movie.
The plot is Jude (Jim Sturgess) is from Liverpool, London and he comes to America to find his dad. Ends up his dad is a janitor at Princeton. At Princeton Jude meets Max (Joe Anderson), a fun loving American who hates the war. Max has a sister named Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who hates the war as well. Jude and Lucy fall in love once Lucy, Max and Jude move into an apartment with Sadie(Dana Fuches), JoJo (Martin Luther) and Prudence (T.V. Carpio) in New York. Max gets drafted into Vietnam. From there the plot goes all wackey with Drugs, Vietnam protests, Sadie going single from her band and one Beatles song after another.
The plot is no what matters in this film at all though. The usual case is that we get about a minute or two long scene and then another song. Now, this is would not necessarily be a bad thing if the story did have every cliche of the '60's. In fact, that doesn't even make it bad. What happens is that you only connect to your actors the way you connect to a cover band: it is okay, but you want the real thing. This has been the fundamental problem of all other Beatles movies: they have been disjointed with very little substance because they are all just built around the songs. Characters are named after songs and are in there literally for one song (Prudence) or the story will take a turn into the useless for another song (Mr. Kite).
The acting in this is fairly normal. Sadly, none of the two leads stick out and are the least interesting characters in the entire movie. Joe Anderson as Max is actually very charismatic and has the best singing song out of Jude, Lucy and him. He brings out the feelings every song is trying to get at. Most notably is "With A Little Help From My Friends" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun." The two best singers in the movie are given only two or three songs: Martin Luther as Jojo and Dana Fuches as Sadie (who isn't that sexy, but has an awesome voice). These two are rock stars and kick ass in their songs. Their duet during the break up of their band is the most energetic part of the film that actually works. Luther's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the 2nd best part of the film and is show stopping since it is all accustic and his vocals are so soft and sweet, just how the song is supposed to be. Fuches does a really really kick ass version of "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" and "Helter Skelter." The person who really stole this film for me though was, surprisingly, Bono as Ken Kasey with a different name. He sings "I Am The Walrus" and the rest of the sequence just... kicks ass and is the high light of the film and it also marks the moment the movie starts going down hill because it is immediately followed by Eddie Izzard's "Mr. Kite" which is undeniably a trip visually, but it is an absolute terrible cover. I didn't even recognize the song until I made out that he said the words "Mr. Kite." This is the moment the movie kicks it to just wanting it to be the visuals.
The visuals are mixed between two things: the music and the dialouge. The dialouge has no feeling to the camera. It drops dead. There is nothing original there. She does the basic "point the camera and shoot" technique or she re-creates a beatles album cover for a laugh. Then there is her visuals during the music. She undeniably has an eye for this sort of stuff as every visual is tantilizing to the eye, if challenging to the brain. The problem with her visuals is that they can become comical or it has nothing to do with the song, and she just thought the visuals synched up well with the beat of the song. Truthfully, the song that most shows her pluses and her minuses is the "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" sequence. It starts out amazing strong. A terrifiying visual of Uncle Sam reaching out to Max singing "I WANT YOU!" then he gets pulled inside for training and it is the same drill sergent for everyone and they all have very goofy makeup on and I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, it is terrible when you try to make the visuals for a song that she wants to be slow and moving and people start to laugh at it, of course, they could have been laughing at her complete lack of knowledge about what the song is ("I Want To Hold Your Hand"). Then there are her amazing sequences: I AM THE WALRUS. She literally takes us through an LSD trip. Bono starts off normally and then the visuals of his body start lagging behind where he is in real space, then he becomes all negative. It is an awesome trip and a really cool scene.
But for all of the good covers, there are 2 or 3 bad covers or songs that have no use other than to be there. For a great example of a terrible cover is the rendition of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" which she decided to turn into a slow emotional song and it just doesn't work. The other terrible cover is "Mr. Kite" while Eddie Izzard has never disappointed me, I hated this sequence and it just pissed me off. "Dear Prudence" isn't a bad cover, but it is a terrible sequence that just wastes time on a useless character. Pretty much, any time it focuses on Prudence it is useless. Another sequence that was stupid/cliched was the "Hey Jude" sequence which we had been waiting for the entire movie ended up... being just another musical sequence.
The Beatles always had bad taste in movies if their films accurately show what they liked in this film and the worst criticism that I could probably give it is that it is a film that the Beatles would have liked: aka very bright and crazy colors and something to look at while tripping.
Then, in the late 80's the rights of the songs fell out of the hands of McCartney and the rest of The Beatles and found themselves into the hands of Michael Jackson. MJ is fast for selling any Beatle song anybody wants to use very cheaply. This made it easy for Julie Taymor (Director of "Titus", "Frida" and the stage version of "The Lion King") to make this movie which is all about how many "Beatles" songs you can cram into one movie.
The plot is Jude (Jim Sturgess) is from Liverpool, London and he comes to America to find his dad. Ends up his dad is a janitor at Princeton. At Princeton Jude meets Max (Joe Anderson), a fun loving American who hates the war. Max has a sister named Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who hates the war as well. Jude and Lucy fall in love once Lucy, Max and Jude move into an apartment with Sadie(Dana Fuches), JoJo (Martin Luther) and Prudence (T.V. Carpio) in New York. Max gets drafted into Vietnam. From there the plot goes all wackey with Drugs, Vietnam protests, Sadie going single from her band and one Beatles song after another.
The plot is no what matters in this film at all though. The usual case is that we get about a minute or two long scene and then another song. Now, this is would not necessarily be a bad thing if the story did have every cliche of the '60's. In fact, that doesn't even make it bad. What happens is that you only connect to your actors the way you connect to a cover band: it is okay, but you want the real thing. This has been the fundamental problem of all other Beatles movies: they have been disjointed with very little substance because they are all just built around the songs. Characters are named after songs and are in there literally for one song (Prudence) or the story will take a turn into the useless for another song (Mr. Kite).
The acting in this is fairly normal. Sadly, none of the two leads stick out and are the least interesting characters in the entire movie. Joe Anderson as Max is actually very charismatic and has the best singing song out of Jude, Lucy and him. He brings out the feelings every song is trying to get at. Most notably is "With A Little Help From My Friends" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun." The two best singers in the movie are given only two or three songs: Martin Luther as Jojo and Dana Fuches as Sadie (who isn't that sexy, but has an awesome voice). These two are rock stars and kick ass in their songs. Their duet during the break up of their band is the most energetic part of the film that actually works. Luther's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the 2nd best part of the film and is show stopping since it is all accustic and his vocals are so soft and sweet, just how the song is supposed to be. Fuches does a really really kick ass version of "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" and "Helter Skelter." The person who really stole this film for me though was, surprisingly, Bono as Ken Kasey with a different name. He sings "I Am The Walrus" and the rest of the sequence just... kicks ass and is the high light of the film and it also marks the moment the movie starts going down hill because it is immediately followed by Eddie Izzard's "Mr. Kite" which is undeniably a trip visually, but it is an absolute terrible cover. I didn't even recognize the song until I made out that he said the words "Mr. Kite." This is the moment the movie kicks it to just wanting it to be the visuals.
The visuals are mixed between two things: the music and the dialouge. The dialouge has no feeling to the camera. It drops dead. There is nothing original there. She does the basic "point the camera and shoot" technique or she re-creates a beatles album cover for a laugh. Then there is her visuals during the music. She undeniably has an eye for this sort of stuff as every visual is tantilizing to the eye, if challenging to the brain. The problem with her visuals is that they can become comical or it has nothing to do with the song, and she just thought the visuals synched up well with the beat of the song. Truthfully, the song that most shows her pluses and her minuses is the "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" sequence. It starts out amazing strong. A terrifiying visual of Uncle Sam reaching out to Max singing "I WANT YOU!" then he gets pulled inside for training and it is the same drill sergent for everyone and they all have very goofy makeup on and I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, it is terrible when you try to make the visuals for a song that she wants to be slow and moving and people start to laugh at it, of course, they could have been laughing at her complete lack of knowledge about what the song is ("I Want To Hold Your Hand"). Then there are her amazing sequences: I AM THE WALRUS. She literally takes us through an LSD trip. Bono starts off normally and then the visuals of his body start lagging behind where he is in real space, then he becomes all negative. It is an awesome trip and a really cool scene.
But for all of the good covers, there are 2 or 3 bad covers or songs that have no use other than to be there. For a great example of a terrible cover is the rendition of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" which she decided to turn into a slow emotional song and it just doesn't work. The other terrible cover is "Mr. Kite" while Eddie Izzard has never disappointed me, I hated this sequence and it just pissed me off. "Dear Prudence" isn't a bad cover, but it is a terrible sequence that just wastes time on a useless character. Pretty much, any time it focuses on Prudence it is useless. Another sequence that was stupid/cliched was the "Hey Jude" sequence which we had been waiting for the entire movie ended up... being just another musical sequence.
The Beatles always had bad taste in movies if their films accurately show what they liked in this film and the worst criticism that I could probably give it is that it is a film that the Beatles would have liked: aka very bright and crazy colors and something to look at while tripping.
Monday, October 22, 2007
5 Favorite Directors
1) Martin Scorcese, 2)Stanley Kubrick, 3)Alfred Hitchcock, 4)Quentin Tarantino and
5)Steven Spielberg
I have wanted to be a director since I was 12. So I have studied directors, their different styles and their influences over society. So, since I'm un-original, when Kyle did a blog about his favorite directors I decided to do my own, shorter, list. Here it is. This was very difficult each director I had to judge on how many of their films I've enjoyed, who I think is the best, and who has inspired me the most to be a director
5) Steven Spielberg:
This man has rocked since his first movie "Duel" and to this day the man continues making great films. Spielberg is probably the most known director in the world. Very little people know even what a director does, but everybody knows Spielberg. His name is synonomous with great films. He has done comedies ("The Terminal") to well... any other genre. Not only has he done every genre, but everytime he does he creates a great film, if not a classic, for each genre. He has created the two best World War II films ("Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan"), one of the best horror films ever ("Jaws"), the best action trilogy ever (Indiana Jones trilogy), and some of the best scifi films ever ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "E.T".) Even his "bad" films are extremely entertaining and the man seems to just turn crap into gold even this late in his career. I cannot simply wait for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
4) Quentin Tarantino
The early 90's showed a great outflowing of great young directors: Rich Linklater, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers. Some were visually oriented (Robert Rodriguez), some were dialouge oriented (Kevin Smith, Rich Linklater) there were two that had both, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. It was a hard choice for this slot between the two, but I made my choice and it is Tarantino because well... I just perfer Tarantino. This guy knows plot structure and he knows how to manipulate it and he knows how to write great dialouge. Every line he writes pops, it is lucky he has always had great actors to surround him. I mean, this is a guy who got Harvey Keitel to produce his first film ("Reservoir Dogs") because Keitel wanted to play a role in it so badly that he was willing to do whatever possible to get it made. His use of story structure is what gained him fame and what keeps him going today. In "Reservoir Dogs" he tells us the entire story in the first scene in what seems like a simple little discussion about pop culture. Then he tells the story in chunks and allows us to become more and more involved with these characters. Pulp Fiction mixes three different story lines at one time and what appears in one scene might be totally different than what it appears. Foxy Brown... was a regular movie and the Kill Bill debacle was just that... a debacle. Then he returned to form with "Death Proof" where he messed with the formula for a slasher film and created one intense second half.
3) Alfred Hitchcock
What is there to be said about a man who has film classes dedicated to his work. He always knows what to do with the camera and he creates deep solid characters. This is a man who did two films that are set in one room and made them incredibly scary. "Rear Window" in the hands of any other man would have failed miserably. It would have lost steam very early, but Hitchcock keeps us with the character, we know all that we know, until half way through where he shows us more than the main character. From that point on we are one step ahead and it makes us more terrified for our main character concluding in the explosive finale. In Pyscho we are watching a fairly basic crime thriller for the first 30 minutes until our main character and star, who we grow to love, is murdered in the shower sequence. From that point on we are left with who we think is a very nice guy left in a crappy situation. Hitchcock did have some failures in his early career and that is why he is so low on the list for this master.
2) Stanely Kubrick
Fans of literature who feel that books need to be directly translated should HATE this man. He made his career off of being an incredible director while "mutilating books." Truthfully, while his books are bad WORD FOR WORD translations, they are great thematic translations (except for "The Shining" but that is still an incredible movie). This is a man who turned a book about the realistic chances of a nuclear war to one of the best comedies of all time ("Dr. Strangelove") and took over "Spartacus" half way through and created one of the best epics of all time. He olds, in my opinion, the award for the best scifi movie of all time: "Clockwork Orange." All of his movies are dark facinating looks at strange circumstances surrounding regular people of the world they are in and the effects of the circumstances. It is always about the characters and he has done many awesome films and even though he went out with a failure (the soft core porno wrapped as a movie "Eyes Wide Shut") he will always be known as a pure and utter genious.
1) Martin Scorcese:
Yes, Scorcese began with two bad movies, but his career really began with "Mean Streets" the first of his unofficial italian gangster trilogy. Scorcese is best when he is given a character to get to deeply know. "Mean Streets" was all about somebody who wanted to be a gangster, but couldn't, "GoodFellas" was about a middle class gangster and "Casino" was about upper class gangsters. Even though he is known for his gangster films, his best film, which is also the best movie of all time in my opinion, is "Raging Bull." Scorcese crafted such a deeply tragic film about a man who will do whatever to become the middle-class champ and once he gets it, how his life no longer has a point. This is one of his 8 collaborations with DeNiro and it gave DeNiro one of his Oscars. This film expands on everything that Scorcese had set up with "Taxi Driver" another film. Both films work as great companion pieces with each other as well as "The Last King of Comedy" and "The Aviator" but niether of these films are as good. The reason "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" work so well together though, is it shows Scorcese's great symbolism. In "Raging Bull" each boxing scene symbolized the time in his life. In fact, the scene where he throws the fight was show with flames in front of the lenses to make it seem like he was boxing in his own hell. In "Taxi Driver" there is a scene where DeNiro is on the phone begging his girlfriend to come back to him and the camera quickly focuses on the hall next to him because the phone call was "too hard to watch."
So there they are, my 5 favorite directors of all time. Go out and rent a film of theirs.
My recommendations:
5 - Spielberg - "Schindler's List"
4 - Tarantino - "Reservoir Dogs"
3 - Hitchcock - "Rear Window"
2 - Kubrick - "A Clockwork Orange"
1 - Scorcese - "Raging Bull"
5)Steven Spielberg
I have wanted to be a director since I was 12. So I have studied directors, their different styles and their influences over society. So, since I'm un-original, when Kyle did a blog about his favorite directors I decided to do my own, shorter, list. Here it is. This was very difficult each director I had to judge on how many of their films I've enjoyed, who I think is the best, and who has inspired me the most to be a director
5) Steven Spielberg:
This man has rocked since his first movie "Duel" and to this day the man continues making great films. Spielberg is probably the most known director in the world. Very little people know even what a director does, but everybody knows Spielberg. His name is synonomous with great films. He has done comedies ("The Terminal") to well... any other genre. Not only has he done every genre, but everytime he does he creates a great film, if not a classic, for each genre. He has created the two best World War II films ("Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan"), one of the best horror films ever ("Jaws"), the best action trilogy ever (Indiana Jones trilogy), and some of the best scifi films ever ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "E.T".) Even his "bad" films are extremely entertaining and the man seems to just turn crap into gold even this late in his career. I cannot simply wait for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
4) Quentin Tarantino
The early 90's showed a great outflowing of great young directors: Rich Linklater, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers. Some were visually oriented (Robert Rodriguez), some were dialouge oriented (Kevin Smith, Rich Linklater) there were two that had both, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. It was a hard choice for this slot between the two, but I made my choice and it is Tarantino because well... I just perfer Tarantino. This guy knows plot structure and he knows how to manipulate it and he knows how to write great dialouge. Every line he writes pops, it is lucky he has always had great actors to surround him. I mean, this is a guy who got Harvey Keitel to produce his first film ("Reservoir Dogs") because Keitel wanted to play a role in it so badly that he was willing to do whatever possible to get it made. His use of story structure is what gained him fame and what keeps him going today. In "Reservoir Dogs" he tells us the entire story in the first scene in what seems like a simple little discussion about pop culture. Then he tells the story in chunks and allows us to become more and more involved with these characters. Pulp Fiction mixes three different story lines at one time and what appears in one scene might be totally different than what it appears. Foxy Brown... was a regular movie and the Kill Bill debacle was just that... a debacle. Then he returned to form with "Death Proof" where he messed with the formula for a slasher film and created one intense second half.
3) Alfred Hitchcock
What is there to be said about a man who has film classes dedicated to his work. He always knows what to do with the camera and he creates deep solid characters. This is a man who did two films that are set in one room and made them incredibly scary. "Rear Window" in the hands of any other man would have failed miserably. It would have lost steam very early, but Hitchcock keeps us with the character, we know all that we know, until half way through where he shows us more than the main character. From that point on we are one step ahead and it makes us more terrified for our main character concluding in the explosive finale. In Pyscho we are watching a fairly basic crime thriller for the first 30 minutes until our main character and star, who we grow to love, is murdered in the shower sequence. From that point on we are left with who we think is a very nice guy left in a crappy situation. Hitchcock did have some failures in his early career and that is why he is so low on the list for this master.
2) Stanely Kubrick
Fans of literature who feel that books need to be directly translated should HATE this man. He made his career off of being an incredible director while "mutilating books." Truthfully, while his books are bad WORD FOR WORD translations, they are great thematic translations (except for "The Shining" but that is still an incredible movie). This is a man who turned a book about the realistic chances of a nuclear war to one of the best comedies of all time ("Dr. Strangelove") and took over "Spartacus" half way through and created one of the best epics of all time. He olds, in my opinion, the award for the best scifi movie of all time: "Clockwork Orange." All of his movies are dark facinating looks at strange circumstances surrounding regular people of the world they are in and the effects of the circumstances. It is always about the characters and he has done many awesome films and even though he went out with a failure (the soft core porno wrapped as a movie "Eyes Wide Shut") he will always be known as a pure and utter genious.
1) Martin Scorcese:
Yes, Scorcese began with two bad movies, but his career really began with "Mean Streets" the first of his unofficial italian gangster trilogy. Scorcese is best when he is given a character to get to deeply know. "Mean Streets" was all about somebody who wanted to be a gangster, but couldn't, "GoodFellas" was about a middle class gangster and "Casino" was about upper class gangsters. Even though he is known for his gangster films, his best film, which is also the best movie of all time in my opinion, is "Raging Bull." Scorcese crafted such a deeply tragic film about a man who will do whatever to become the middle-class champ and once he gets it, how his life no longer has a point. This is one of his 8 collaborations with DeNiro and it gave DeNiro one of his Oscars. This film expands on everything that Scorcese had set up with "Taxi Driver" another film. Both films work as great companion pieces with each other as well as "The Last King of Comedy" and "The Aviator" but niether of these films are as good. The reason "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" work so well together though, is it shows Scorcese's great symbolism. In "Raging Bull" each boxing scene symbolized the time in his life. In fact, the scene where he throws the fight was show with flames in front of the lenses to make it seem like he was boxing in his own hell. In "Taxi Driver" there is a scene where DeNiro is on the phone begging his girlfriend to come back to him and the camera quickly focuses on the hall next to him because the phone call was "too hard to watch."
So there they are, my 5 favorite directors of all time. Go out and rent a film of theirs.
My recommendations:
5 - Spielberg - "Schindler's List"
4 - Tarantino - "Reservoir Dogs"
3 - Hitchcock - "Rear Window"
2 - Kubrick - "A Clockwork Orange"
1 - Scorcese - "Raging Bull"
Monday, October 8, 2007
Evil Dead II
So I'm reviewing "Evil Dead II" before I review "The Evil Dead." Whatever, I watched it first out of my DVD's so far. Plus, this is the best out of this series and when I say that the "Evil Dead II" is the best out of the Evil Dead trilogy it means it is the strongest of awesome visual and hysterical orgasms. Simply.
This movie recaps the first movie with the first seven minutes but it cuts out the characters who aren't necessary to its story, needed to tell you that before we began. We are told Ash came up with his girlfriend, Linda, to an abandoned cabin for spring break. There Ash discovers a strange book: The Necronomicon Ex Mortus, roughly translated, book of the dead. He plays a recording of a professor speaking passages from it and quickly the demons come and seize Linda. The rest of the movie is a manic crazy comedy as Ash tries to survive killer trees, candarian demons, rednecks, his own hand and his decapitated girlfriend.
From beginning to end, "Evil Dead II" is a visual treat with twists and turns around every single corner. I promise you, that if you haven't already seen it, you have not seen anything like this movie before. All the transitions are fluid and keep the pace of the movie constantly speedy. There is so many gags and set pieces in this crazy movie, but it never feels rushed. Everything just organically arises from the problems and rules set earlier in the first movie (and this movie). There will not be a moment where you are bored and not just staring at the screen at the bright colors or blood and gore that flies across the screen.
Not only is this movie an absolute trip, but it is hilarious. My personal favorite sequence involves Ash's fight with his hand which has become possessed by a bite from his ex-girlfriend. Of course, that isn't the only funny part. Now, not everyone is going to find it funny, but everyone should enjoy it. The comedy is very dark and arises from your ability to laugh at the ways people get attacked, dismembered, stabbed and killed.
The comedy could not have been sold by any other man that Bruce Campbell. My favorite actor of all time, Bruce Campbell has the chin and looks to be a hero and he steps up in spades. In the first movie, his character Ash was a whiney little bitch who was forced to become the hero after everybody turned into... well a candarian demon. This movie here though, this is where Ash becomes the Ash we all know and love. The bumbling hero that has know idea how to do anything but kick demon ass. His one liners are not in full swing in this movie, but they do start appearing. Most famously, "GROOVY!" Which is inserted in the perfect place.
All the great visuals though, those are in great supply from the master: Sam Raimi. The first movie put Raimi on the map as a great visionary, and this movie upped the antee. Truthfully, these are the best visuals that Raimi has ever produced. His direction is so powerful and just in your face that you have no choice but to be in shock by it. Every frame is filled with and there is almost always a joke at least in the back ground.
If you can't realize: I LOVE THIS MOVIE! Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY needs to at least see this film. If you don't like the comedy you will at least call it a visual treat. Everything is so well designed that damn... It is the perfect movie that makes me happy everytime I watch it no matter how pissed off I am.
This movie recaps the first movie with the first seven minutes but it cuts out the characters who aren't necessary to its story, needed to tell you that before we began. We are told Ash came up with his girlfriend, Linda, to an abandoned cabin for spring break. There Ash discovers a strange book: The Necronomicon Ex Mortus, roughly translated, book of the dead. He plays a recording of a professor speaking passages from it and quickly the demons come and seize Linda. The rest of the movie is a manic crazy comedy as Ash tries to survive killer trees, candarian demons, rednecks, his own hand and his decapitated girlfriend.
From beginning to end, "Evil Dead II" is a visual treat with twists and turns around every single corner. I promise you, that if you haven't already seen it, you have not seen anything like this movie before. All the transitions are fluid and keep the pace of the movie constantly speedy. There is so many gags and set pieces in this crazy movie, but it never feels rushed. Everything just organically arises from the problems and rules set earlier in the first movie (and this movie). There will not be a moment where you are bored and not just staring at the screen at the bright colors or blood and gore that flies across the screen.
Not only is this movie an absolute trip, but it is hilarious. My personal favorite sequence involves Ash's fight with his hand which has become possessed by a bite from his ex-girlfriend. Of course, that isn't the only funny part. Now, not everyone is going to find it funny, but everyone should enjoy it. The comedy is very dark and arises from your ability to laugh at the ways people get attacked, dismembered, stabbed and killed.
The comedy could not have been sold by any other man that Bruce Campbell. My favorite actor of all time, Bruce Campbell has the chin and looks to be a hero and he steps up in spades. In the first movie, his character Ash was a whiney little bitch who was forced to become the hero after everybody turned into... well a candarian demon. This movie here though, this is where Ash becomes the Ash we all know and love. The bumbling hero that has know idea how to do anything but kick demon ass. His one liners are not in full swing in this movie, but they do start appearing. Most famously, "GROOVY!" Which is inserted in the perfect place.
All the great visuals though, those are in great supply from the master: Sam Raimi. The first movie put Raimi on the map as a great visionary, and this movie upped the antee. Truthfully, these are the best visuals that Raimi has ever produced. His direction is so powerful and just in your face that you have no choice but to be in shock by it. Every frame is filled with and there is almost always a joke at least in the back ground.
If you can't realize: I LOVE THIS MOVIE! Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY needs to at least see this film. If you don't like the comedy you will at least call it a visual treat. Everything is so well designed that damn... It is the perfect movie that makes me happy everytime I watch it no matter how pissed off I am.
Halloween Horror Reviews
Many people know that one of my favorite genres is horror. It was the first genre that I really got into and it lead me to my love of film. In fact, the movie that I consider being the steping stone into my love of movies is "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" when I watched the entire trilogy one night with my father on AMC's monsterfest (when it used to be good).
Many of my favorite films of all time are horror films and I always love to bust them out around this time. That, and usually there are some good horror films that come out this month. Sadly, the one I'm really looking forward to (Hatchet) was never in this area and will probably not be in this area. "30 Days of Night" is the only film that is a horror that comes out this month that I actually want to see.
So, I've decided, since I will be busting out my favorite horror films, whenever I watch one of them I will write a review of them. So, I shall note that if the film I'm reviewing is only on DVD or if it is theaters. Better yet even, if it is on DVD and getting a one night re-release somewhere close by (the only two I will possibly review that I know will be in theaters is Halloween 4 and 5).
So, enjoy my DVD reviews. I will also try to note which DVD I have and what I understand to be the best DVD.
Have a Happy Halloween,
Rob
Many of my favorite films of all time are horror films and I always love to bust them out around this time. That, and usually there are some good horror films that come out this month. Sadly, the one I'm really looking forward to (Hatchet) was never in this area and will probably not be in this area. "30 Days of Night" is the only film that is a horror that comes out this month that I actually want to see.
So, I've decided, since I will be busting out my favorite horror films, whenever I watch one of them I will write a review of them. So, I shall note that if the film I'm reviewing is only on DVD or if it is theaters. Better yet even, if it is on DVD and getting a one night re-release somewhere close by (the only two I will possibly review that I know will be in theaters is Halloween 4 and 5).
So, enjoy my DVD reviews. I will also try to note which DVD I have and what I understand to be the best DVD.
Have a Happy Halloween,
Rob
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