At the movies: Scream VI.

 Scream VI is a definite step back toward the right direction after its fifth installment.

At the movies: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.

 

The next Marvel one.

Some thoughts on Avatar: The Way of Water.

 I got real in-depth about the 3D (good) and HFR (bad) of the new Jim Cameron joint.

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At the movies: Strange World.

 Disney's doing something interesting, and the general public couldn't care less, which is very sad.

Also, Jaboukie Young-White is the queer hero of a Disney movie, and that's awesome.

At the movies: Brahmastra Part One: Shiva.

 

A visual feast that shows how to do this kind of film with panache and color.

At the movies: Jaws in 3D.

 

I cannot impress upon you how satisfying the 3D conversion of 1975's Jaws is. Just spectacular work across the board.

Friday the 13th: Parts III (3-D) and IV (The Final Chapter)

A fun opportunity here in Nashville for a Friday the 13th weekend. And I had to get a little shady regarding the Screen Drafts kerfuffle on their Elm Street/Friday Superdraft, because shame on me if I didn't. I maintain 4 is the best Friday the 13th film, and that III is one of the lesser offerings, unless you're actually watching it in 3D, in which case it is way better than it has any right to be.

At the movies: Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2.

Despite it being the biggest movie in the world right now, it's possible you've not seen Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2. I have some thoughts on the subject.

What's the best way to see the new Star Wars picture in Middle Tennessee?

In another of my expedition pieces (see also the last Paranormal Activity film), I decided to see The Force Awakens in the formats it is available to be seen in locally and compare them. The resulting sixteen hundred word blurt is available for you to investigate.

Why is it so hard to see Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension?

Nashville, my home base, is one of the cities affected by the current disagreement between Paramount Pictures and a few like-minded exhibitors (Regal, Carmike, Cinemark). So I decided to investigate, as well as see and review the latest (supposedly the last) in the Paranormal Activity series.

Famous People talked with me: Robert Zemeckis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

A fun condensation of The Walk's press conference from this year's New York Film Festival. I dug the film a lot, though it had too much voiceover and I spent the last fifty minutes in twitchy nervous unease.

At the movies: Guardians of the Galaxy 3D.

I've been a fan of James Gunn's work since I first saw Tromeo and Juliet at a friend's apartment in Murfreesboro way back in the late '90s. I was so bowled over by what that film did that I even saw both of the Scooby-Doo movies he wrote. Fortunately, with the Dawn of the Dead remake, it all got back on track, and Slither and Super continued in that fashion. So there's history there, and I have to doff my theoretical hat to Marvel, because with Shane Black last year and now James Gunn, they've taken some of my favorite writer/directors and made them A-list players - and this is something that can only benefit our culture immeasurably.

So please do check out my review of this film for the Scene. It's a lot of fun, and it brings me great joy on multiple levels.

At the movies: 300: Rise of an Empire 3D.

As much as I hated the original 300 (and oh, did I- even busting out the Boo-urns on it), I kind of enjoyed aspects of the new film, mainly because it's a little more interesting and not nearly as stupid as its progenitor.

At the movies: Nurse 3D.

While it didn't make it out in 2012 (which makes the mind boggle at what all went on behind the scenes in its making and post-production), Nurse 3D is now something most can experience.

At the movies: January catch-up.

A fun romp through several of January's weirder releases. It's a pity that I didn't think to wait an extra week on this so I could have included I, Frankenstein. Oh well...

Some thoughts on Star Trek Into Darkness.

I am fortunate, because I have an editor and venue that is interested in hardcore Trekkie thoughts. Take a look, if you're inclined to dig deep (by which I mean Arex and M'Ress, a defense of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Klinzhai realness, and why Hollywood considers Wrath of Khan to be some kind of sacred ur-text). I welcome your thoughts, provided you're not just trying to be a jerkface.

I also made a point of not getting into my usual #1 Star Trek complaint (the abandonment of the Deltans in favor of their community college equivalents, the Betazoids), because the bald female navigator in this film (Ensign Darwin, as credited in the cast list), while she may not supposed to be Deltan, that is certainly the visual impression she gives. That she is an actress of color is even more awesome, because it's about time Paramount gave us some IDIC in action.

Also, here's a link to my take on the 2009 Trek, just to acclimate yourself to my perspectives. Cumberbatch is lightyears better than Bana, that is for damned sure.

Famous People Talked to Me: Ang Lee.

Life of Pi 3D was the opening night film of the 2012 New York Film Festival. For its press screening (which happened early that morning), a bunch of us waited in the torrential downpour. At the time, I complained, because I could be funny about it. But the film was transcendent and fairly moving, and some of the best 3D I'd ever seen. So here's the talk with Ang Lee from after it- it was a fun press conference, and Lee (in addition to being an NYU alum, so you know I have his back, he's a solid dude with amazing visual imagination) was a lot of fun.

A side note: if you are at all inclined to see this, do it in 3D. For reals, y'all.

At the movies: Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

The PROs:

1) There's a creature in this film that I'm calling the spidermannequin. It is featured in the trailer, though it skitters quickly (and with such overstated CG speed) that you can't appreciate what an exquisite slice of nightmare fodder it is. This is up there with the Trilobite in Prometheus, or any of the reanimated pets in Frankenweenie. I've always said that a good monster can make up for a multitude of sins in any movie- this is a very good monster.

2) Deborah Kara Unger realness. She only has one scene, but she gets third billing. Damn right. She'll always be Catherine Ballard to me, and she brings all the good will she brought into the first SH to this one.

3) The nurses. Like a fusion of the Stygian Witches from the original Clash of the Titans and The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who (even though, yes, I know the Silent Hill nurses predate the Weeping Angels), these stop/start contortionist slice-and-dice artistes are remarkably effective. Unfortunately, their sequence is edited a bit too haphazardly for one to really appreciate the tension that the 3D adds to this particular sequence.

4) A carousel kept in motion by jagged pectoral hooks.

5) Some masterfully composed deep-focus shots that use stereoscopic images in an effective and unsettling way.

6) a child's birthday party turns into what looks like a meeting of the Kiss Army.

7) I hope Clive Barker got some money from this production, because this movie has a Cenobite axe battle as its climax. It's not staged particularly well, but its set-up is good, and there's a nice transformation that precedes it.

8) the female lead (playing the grown-up version of diva Jodelle Ferland from the first film) is good. She's got presence and gravitas, and she's got a Michelle Williams vibe going on that is a nice touch. The script gives her nothing, and she turns it into something.


The CONs:

1) This is a terrible script. No dialogue that isn't cliched. No motivation that doesn't feel like a cutscene (rightfully) excised from a game. No effort spent on establishing 'the real world.' No strong characters whatsoever- say whatever you want about Roger Avary, his script for the original Silent Hill had superb characterization, including five great roles for actresses. There are entire studios that haven't released five great roles for women in their entire 2012 lineup. And there's just nothing here that doesn't depend on an awareness of either the first film or the series of games. I bet dubbed into another language, this film plays like gangbusters, though.

2) It looks like they had about a tenth of the budget of the first film to work with. That's not the filmmakers' fault, but it is something you need to keep in mind.

3) There's none of the Italian horror dream logic that proved so refreshing in the first film.

4) There's no telekinetic razorwire massacre, or anything that comes even close to the transgressive, gleeful savagery of that sequence.

5) The male lead is just not very good. Part of it is that the script gives him nothing to work with, but he's also never really convincing.

6) Everybody from the first film who returns in this one... one scene each. Sean Bean, he gets a couple, and (surprise) he doesn't die (literally), so that's something. But there's a decent amount of stars involved in this film, and they all get the traditional scream queen treatment of one scene and out. When Malcolm McDowell shows up, you just have to accept that.

7) The 3D is really inconsistent. Some scenes and sequences are absolutely gorgeous, with amazing uses of depth separation and perspective shifts. Others look flat and post-converted.

8) What happened to Carrie-Anne Moss' career? She was the ass-kicking diva of the new millennium thanks to The Matrix. And she's worked continuously since the late '80s. But she deserves more- she gets to be the evil queen in this film, with pale skin and no eyebrows, but she only shines when the CG and stuntperson take over when she grows sawblades and becomes a Barkerian warrioress. She does get a great 'take him to the Asylum and cure him!' moment that resonates, but like everyone else in the cast who speaks, she is left adrift by the script. She doesn't get anything on par with what Alice Krige does in the first one, and that's sad.

9) I'm sure the studios involved were ecstatic that this entry runs just over an hour and a half, but there's never a chance to absorb any of the environments the film presents. Everything looks kind of cheap. The cinematographer, Maxime Alexander, shot Haute Tension and the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and The Crazies- this is a man who knows how to light things beautifully. And this film looks haloed and overprocessed.

So I can't recommend Silent Hill: Revelation to you. If anything, it's the most disappointed I've been by a sequel to a film I loved since Basic Instinct. Though, in all honesty, Basic Instinct: Risk Addiction had Sharon Stone going full-tilt crazy, and there's nothing so lively or refreshing to be found here. Oh well...

At the movies: ParaNorman 3D.

One of the year's surprising delights (that nobody seems to be going to see- which annoys me to no end). Do yourself a favor and check it out- there's a lot here.

At the movies: Pina 3D.

So, once again the forces of good have triumphed, and a weird, artsy 3D movie is getting a run at the megaplex. It's Cave of Forgotten Dreams all over again, except I find this film even more visually exciting. And the Oscar nomination doesn't hurt. If you're in to the visual possibilities of stereoscopic imagery, this is what you want to see...