April Round-Up: Part 1

This month, despite the pouring rain that never stopped, I only managed 22 films.  Here is the bottom 11.  Please check back tomorrow for the top 11 featuring classics with strangely similar titles such as The Vanishing,Vanishing Point, A Night to Remember and Night of the Hunter.  And then there's the new films including 21 Jump Street, Tomboy and Cabin in the Woods.  But what will take the top spot?  Come back tomorrow to find out!

22. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Troy Nixey, 2011)

...or this movie.  Actually no do be afraid.  Be afraid that you have just lost a precious piece of your life sitting through it.  It’s ok really.  Just a bit dependent on little CGI monsters that aren’t scary.  And Katie Holmes.  No offence but how does she keep getting work?

21. Apollo 18 (Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, 2011)

Found footage from space.  Whenever a franchise or trend gets tired, they make the next instalment in space.  Jason X was ridiculous fun.  This is a bit too serious for its own good.  Not the worst ‘found footage’ horror ever made but still not that good.

20. Episode 50 (Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley, 2011)

Another found footage horror.  Not great but like most of them, it has a couple of pretty scary moments.  Looks like this and the recent Grave Encounters are very similar.  TV crews in an abandoned hospital full of spooks and the cameras keep rolling to capture all the fun.

19. Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (Tom Six, 2011)

Sick Six Sucks.  But you might admire the director for taking horror to extremes.  If you want to watch sick stuff, this film really pushes the boundaries of taste.  If you know the idea, you’ll be pleased or disturbed to know that this time there are laxatives involved.  Lots of laxatives.  Truly and unbelievably sick stuff.  And this is the cut version fortunately.  Thank you BBFC.

18. Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)

Found this quote from IMDb: ‘Field of Dreams is one of the strangest films I've seen, and possibly one of the best. When it throws its subject matter at you, you wonder how a story so preposterous can ever work’ No I don’t.  It didn’t.  Preposterous, overly sentimental and weird.  Not quite sure what the fuss is about.

17. Semi-Pro (Kent Alterman, 2008)

The weakest of Will Ferrell’s sports movies.  Then again I haven’t seen Kicking and Screaming yet. Hoping to right an article about Ferrell's sports movies and their representation of masculinity.

16. Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2007)

Flawed but fun.  Timberlake lip syncing to The Killers is the stand out scene but The Rock also delivers a funny performance throughout.  Great music and some stunning visuals but neither can hide the films obvious messiness.

15. Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)

Great dancing but deeply disturbing raping.  Despite the still hugely impressive dance scenes and the social realist vibe, the scene where a girl gets raped but then totally forgotten about as the action moves to bridge stumbling antics reeks of misogyny.  Yes the film is about certain attitudes held by many members of society and does tackle this with the father telling the son washing up is ‘women’s work’ but then this rape scene comes along and is almost completely forgotten about moments later.  It felt ridiculous that the girl in question would stick with these guys after being mistreated so badly.  Left a bad taste in my mouth.

14. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)

Graphic gay romance.  I might be being a prude as I’ve not seen a lot of gay sex in films before but this film delved deep into two interesting characters before delving deep into their sexual activities.  It’s sweet and engaging but nothing too special.  A very real modern romance.

13. Martin (George A. Romero, 1976)

The magic of vampires takes a stake to the heart in Romero’s realist take on the monsters.  It is dated but still an original and interesting take on the vampire.

12. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall, 2011)

Killer mermaids, Captain Jack and the hunt for the Holy Grail.  BIG DUMB LOUD FUN.

That's it.  See you tomorrow with the top 11 films I watched in April.  What did you think of these movies?  Any surprises here?  Anything controversial?  Let me know below...

Scraping the Bottom of the Found Footage Barrel

In my attempts to watch every found footage horror ever made, I have started to really stare down into the deep, dark abyss of straight-to-dvd clag.  Hopefully there will come a point where I can stop this masochistic punishment as sometimes it feels like I'm battering my own head with a video camera and then forcing myself to watch it back like some extreme form of happy slapping.

On the bright side, I think in January I've gotten through the worst and in February I can take pleasure in recent success stories Apollo 18 and The Troll Hunter.

But for now here's a round up of the found footage horrors I watched last month:

The St. Francisville Experiment (Ted Nicolaou, 2000)

 

Notable for being the first I’ve seen where (SPOILER) the characters with cameras actually survive.  Other than that, adds very little to the sub-genre.  Stuck in a house where past atrocities took place, the completely unmemorable characters are terrorized by spooky goings-on that aren’t that scary.  

Monster (Erik Estenberg, 2007)

Worst film I watched this month and for that matter, in quite a long time.  I hate to criticise but I can't believe that much effort actually went into this one at all.  Dreadful, penniless attempt to re-create Cloverfields’ thrills with no budget, even less story, passable acting and virtually no effects shots.  Something attacks Japan and two documentary makers stumble about the city not really filming anything of any importance or significance until they finally bumble into an anti-climactic ending.

Evil Things (Dominic Perez, 2009)

Students go to a house in the middle of nowhere for a birthday bash but are followed by a mysterious van.  This one actually has some creepy moments and features a nice addition to the sub-genre in that the killer is also using a camera to capture the events from his own perspective.  The character with camera antics feel very real and natural and the unseen menace provides plenty of suspense.  It’s always good when you actually want the characters to survive and not just get killed so all the bloody screaming and shaky camera will stop.

Paranormal Entity 2 (Anthony Fankhauser, 2010)

Apart from the unnecessary tits and limited acting abilities of some of the cast, this sequel from the cheapo rip-off studio Asylum is pretty good.  When a ghost-hunting TV crew set up their cameras in the house of infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy, they capture everything they hoped for and more.  Like with the Paranormal Activity films, a little special effects go a long way and the use of multiple cameras in this film keep the action interesting and eliminate the need for characters to keep justifying their continuing filming.  The use of a thermal camera adds thrills and the inclusion of Gacy as the ghostly presence adds a real sense of menace to proceedings.  Recommended for found footage fans (if there are any left).

Best of the bunch: Evil Things and Paranormal Entity 2.  DISCLAIMER: That's not a recommendation, just an observation.  Has anyone else seen any of these? 

10 Blog posts I highly recommend

You have to start somewhere!  In honour of collecting my 30th follower, writing my 65th post and passing the 2100 page view mark, I want to share with you some very (and not so very) recent links from the wonderful film blogging community.  This is by no means everything I've been reading and there is a whole lot more great stuff out there but this is me sharing the love for ten posts I have really enjoyed and would like to recommend!


Join the Depp vs Pitt debate... Big Thoughts From a Small Mind


Check out a great essay on film piracy... Cinematic Paradox

One to relate to (about being a film buff)... A Life in Equinox

One to ponder about Human Centipede 2... A Lifetime in Dark Rooms

An amusing letter to the producers of the new Twilight mess... And So It Begins

Let Andy know what you think of this years Oscar short list for the documentary category... Andy Buckle's Film Emporium

This is why Andy Serkis should get an Oscar nomination... City Lights



A look at Apollo 18 and the found footage trend... Son of Celluloid



3 monster movies to look out for... To the Escape Hatch

Aziza bigs up Hard Candy... Aziza's Picks

Happy reading and please keep following, reading and commenting!  Special thanks to Big Thoughts from a Small  Mind who have twice put up links to my posts now and for giving me the idea to share the love in my own special way.

Fact VS Fiction at the London Film Festival

Tonight I've got tickets to the BFI London Film Festival. In previous years I have been up to see a Q&A with notorious director of cinematic headfucks Irreversible and Enter the Void, Gaspar Noe to find out if he is more dribbling madman or groundbreaking artist. Another year I saw the lovely creator of Wallace and Gromit, Nick Park to hear about how he got into animation. But this year I'm heading to the festival to hear 'a discussion on the line between fact and fiction with filmmakers from this year's programme'.

'Panellists confirmed so far include directors Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void), Asif Kapadia (Senna, Far North), Carol Morley (Dreams of a Life, Edge) and Marc Evans (Hunky Dory).' http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/events/other_events/1970

Kevin Macdonald is a bit of a hero of mine after Life in a Day.  I've banged on about it on this blog a couple of times now.  He's a great documentary maker but I'm not a massive fan of his fiction feature films like The Last King of Scotland.  I will be very curious to hear why he decides to shoot some films as documentaries and some as fiction films.



I'm hoping that the discussion may also touch on questions relevant to my PhD.  Why are so many recent horror filmmakers playing with the mock-doc format?  It seems like barely a month goes by without an addition to this sub-genre.  Most recently Apollo 18 took horror mock-docs into space and the upcoming Paranormal Activity 3 will likely show there is still high demand for films following this trend.

The director of Senna, Asif Kapadia, is also going to be there and I hear this is an excellent documentary.  It also ties into my interest in cinematic depictions of death.  Many horror mock-docs relish in killing the characters in front of and behind the cameras and presenting this as real footage.  This documentary presents the real footage of Senna's death, perhaps making it cinematic snuff.  Is real death something to include in films sold for entertainment?



Michael Moore has used the moment the second plane hit the WTC in Bowling for Columbine.  This was also a moment of murder.  Do documentary makers have more license to show the truth?  Even the truth of death?  Is it their responsibility to show reality?  Even the reality of death?  And are horror filmmakers capitalising on the increase of 'real deaths' in documentary and TV when making mock-docs?

Anyway it will be interesting to here from these filmmakers.  I hope the discussion will shed some light on 'what motivates the decision to present a story as documentary or fiction'.