"Homaje... or imitation? part 2"

Title: The house of the devil

Year: 2009

Genre: Horror, Mystery

Director: Ti West

Writer: Ti West

Runtime: 95min

Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig, AJ Bowen, Dee Walace

Produc.: MPI Media Group, Constructovision, RingTheJing Entertainment, Glass Eye Pix

Two years ago I saw Alien Trespass (2009), a science fiction title where an extraterrestrial being took control of a human body, with the intention of conquering the Earth. Then, a few days ago I saw The house of the devil (2009), a horror film where a young college student was deceived and used for a ritual. Although completely different from each other, both shared to have paid tribute to a much former cinema.

To honor in this business has always been very common, as with the Cecil B. Demille award given to celebrities for their lifetime achievement.  But luckily this doesn’t only happen in such circumstances, being the nods that some directors make to their fellowmen, putting some else’s words in the mouth of their own characters, replicating their aesthetics and even their camera approaches. Any of these options would work, unless, like Ti West, they choose to completely trace a style, rather than just taking certain things.

If at its time it had already happened to R. W. Goodwin’s Alien Trespass, that this were now to happen to The house of the devil would only confirm it: these men had misunderstood what was to pay homage.

I can’t know it for sure, because both could have been made only on request. I want, however, to believe that both Goodwin and West felt, in fact, a strong attachment to their projects. Inspired to going back to that movies, today distant and boring, but great before, and from which they would both nourish.

Yet, if was West had sought to demonstrate was that the past is not forgotten, certainly to accurately copy what he’d seen in his childhood was not exactly recommended. I can already imagine how many who hate remakes wont probably even notice that The house of the devil is nearly one, blinded by their admiration to a cinema they praise, while they criticize the current one without much criteria. It’s very common to idolize the past, while the present is destroyed.

From the credits design to the close-ups on the characters, Ti West wouldn’t leave anything to chance, trying to recreate the style of the seventies-eighties terror, and even rolling in 16 millimeters for the texture. Having us seen it without any knowledge of its director or its cast we might have thought that this movie was from that era.

In The house of devil, young Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) comes across a babysitter request that will run her into the mysterious, liar and dangerous Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan). This will receive her at his home, where he plays the needy and varies in his lies, while convinces her of that, whatever it may cost, that night her presence is required.

Sticking, without variants, to the honoree style, West would forget to include a personal and different touch. Between Samantha speaks to Ulman on the phone, goes to do her job and discovers the real reason of her stay, nothing happens that one wouldn’t be able to see in any film from the ones made ​​at that time. The house of the devil would end up been an unnecessary clone, only justifiable if it were to be an exercise of setting, done by students at a film school.

A girl taking care of someone who never sees, a house which hides a terrible secret and a couple with diabolical plans are part of a plot that, given its characteristic suspense only barely sustains itself and for a while, meanwhile one awaits to happen that original something that never comes.

If hypothetically speaking, we replaced West and the 2009 with a name and date more in line with the alluded cinema, that The house of the devil could have pass for a distant production, I think it means that today it has no place.

My rating: 4/10

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"An ending that deserved a better movie"

Title: The lego movie

Year: 2014

Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy

Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Writer: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (screenplay); Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (story)

Runtime: 100min

Cast: Chris Pratt, Elyzabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill

Produc.: Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, Dune Entertainment-RatPac, The LEGO Group, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures

Budget: $60 million approx.

For those of us who know what Lego is, we may like the movie more or less, but I doubt that visually speaking there´s anything to complain. From the shots in a shootout to the water flooding a submarine, all of what´s digitally created matches the design of the little bricks. And even the way the mini figures move their legs, arms, hands and heads is correct.

If, however, objections where to be for the how it was all built, then indeed, there could be a reason for discontent. Although, being this a matter that lends itself for the analysis.

In The Lego movie, Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a common guy, a construction worker, of whom one day the fate of the world becomes to depend on, against the villainous Lord Business (Will Ferrell). Succeed will require Emmet of the help of Wyldstyle/Lucy (Elyzabeth Bakns) and of Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) advises, beside a battalion of characters, fictional and real, willing to follow him.

It was to be expected, for this adaptation, to want some of the Lego collections to be mention. That it is why, out of nowhere appears the Wild West or the Middle Ages; that without a reason Wyldstyle/Lucy is dating Batman (Will Arnett); or that Gandalf (Todd Hansen) from The Lord of the Rings has also got a line.

But the idea should be far from fulfilling the expectations of the older audiences, for being too childish and have an excess of characters. Not even the constant jokes, with references to comics or other expressions are able to improve a movie that is impossible to take seriously.

Nearing then, to the happy and predictable battle finale, and when it seemed to be all said, everything that´s been going on ends up being part of an unexpected twist. Suddenly, that random great mix of characters from different realities, eras and genres has just happened to have a well-defined why. Only just now we see a conflict that we do care about, with opposite interests that truly meet, and of whose resolution we, more than ever, want to be aware of.

The only thing essential until here has been for us to be patient or capable of seeing this film for what Lego ultimately was: a kid´s game.

My rating: 6/10

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"Looking for Bigfoot, scares were little"

Title: Willow Creek

Year: 2013

Genre: Adventure, Horror, Mystery

Director: Bodcat Goldthwait

Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait

Runtime: 80min

Cast: Bryce Johnson, Alexie Gilmore, Peter Jason, Tom Yamarone 

Prod: Jerkschool Productions

Willow Creek is another indie found footage, from comedian and filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait.

Jim (Bryce Johnson) and Kelly (Alexie Glmore) are a young couple who, along with their camera, goes after Bigfoot. Jim is actually the one who believes in this creature, while Kelly is just keeping him some company. 

Here as a starting point is used the famous and controversial "Patterson film" as inspirational material. Fake for some, true for others, and supposedly shot in 1967 at Bluff Creek, California, it is said to portray what was seen by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin. 

Overall, what we´ve got is the couple going over there and interviewing the locals. From someone who tells them about her own terrifying experience, to a complete skeptic, passing by a guy who sings to them, or an aggressive resident who asks them to go away. They are people who live where the ape-man is the best product of merchandising, with the shape of its footfalls even present in meals. 

From one interview to another, Jim and Kelly keep getting closer to Bluff Creek, place of the "Patterson case" and where they set up their tent. Till here one assumes that Willow Creek is preparing us the field for what certainly, is coming up next. 

When night falls, propitious moment for a lot of things to happen, is when noises and movements begin, distant at first, but then really close, causing fear to take over them both. Jim has placed his camera in front of them and with its light on, turning the scene into a long, though nothing dense "sequence shot", where every single minute is useful. The tension achieved with the sound off box works very well and is always increasing, although it would have worked to complement it with some shots from outside the tent, if not today, at least another night, something that´s left as a pending matter. 

Unfortunately, the moments that give us scares are summarized to this, plus the subsequent attempt of the couple to retrace their steps. Unlike films like Paranormal Activity, it is not even that the intrigue is to be segmented into several night shifts, with increasingly dangerous approaches. If what we´d wanted was to see the hairy giant, the footprints discovered by Jim or the hair they find on a trunk is the most we´re shown. Being patient we´ll be able to see them running into "something", but that´ll only confuse us. Willow Creek ends up being a little, half finished, found footage.

My rating: 4/10

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"Man vs Robot"

Title: Robocop

Year: 2014

Genre: Acción, Crimen, C. Fiction

Director: José Padilha

Writer: Joshua Zetumer (screenplay), Edward Neumeier y Michael Miner (1987 screenplay)

Runtime: 117min 

Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Samuel L. Jackson

Prod.: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Columbia Pictures, Strike Entertainment

Budget: $100 million aprox.

I think that saying that no good movie should be touched, sounds too exaggerated. It´s certainly true that there are titles which are so good, we tend to say they shouldn’t be remade. Think of Schindler's List (1993), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Godfather (1972). And yet, no one ensures us these stories have been told in the only best possible way. Let's then go further back and have a look at Gone with the Wind (1939), also considered a masterpiece. Seeing what it was in its time, it´s clear that today it could be remade and improved, for example, in the acting or in the coloring technique. Finally, if the term remake applies to the best cinema, why not use it for a not so good film. Robocop would be ideal, since, in spite of the fanaticism of many, it is far from being a great movie.

Comparing the original to this one, Padilha definitely touches up the argument for more. Gives Alex Murphy´s (Joel Kinnaman) family a much greater role than before, making Clara (Abbie Cornish) an insistent wife, who refuses to give up on someone that doesn´t even look like her Alex. Further, he fills the movie with controversy, given the high control Omnicorp´s got over the mind and body of the new policeman. Here it is set out the possibility that some day we were no longer our own owners.

This Robocop puts us in 2028, where American company Omnicorp has been selling overseas the ultimate protection for citizens, and that hasn´t yet commercialized into the American market.

The downside is that we see how this works from the streets of Tehran (Iran), where people´s faces are more of fear than of tranquility. An Iranian with explosives, dropping on one of these machines is what was missing to emphasize the idea of ​​terrorism, so associated with the Western Asian countries.

But Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), CEO of Omnicorp, intends, by any means, to insert himself into the local market. For this, he first has to deal with those who oppose to, that machines without feelings or values, patrol the streets. The key to expand lies in the creation of policemen, half robot, half human, and where Alex Murphy is the best candidate. Thanks to his wife Clara, who didn´t want to lose him, Omnicorp can give an almost dead man, a second chance.

When, after the explosion, Alex wakes up and sees he´s Robocop, is where the remake gains ground to the original. Padilha talks about things that today may be of science fiction, but that could soon become reality.

Same as Verhoeven´s, this Robocop´s got it’s strictly police side, with our vigilante firing against crime. However, here it deepens more on all of what the company is capable of doing to come out wining, even if it means being anti-ethical and lying.

The film puts into question where is that begins the man and finishes the robot, where begins the father and husband and ends the policeman, or what´s of Murphy´s rights, when he can no longer decide for himself.

Padilha at the same time takes certain liberties, such as inconsistencies in the way in which Murphy solves his attempted murder. With that, all he does is to show us aspects of Robocop, which never before had he mention he had, and that don´t even fit.

My rating: 7/10

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"Many pray to get out. He charges"

Title: Escape Plan 

Year: 2013 

Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller 

Director: Mikael Håfström 

Writer: Miles Chapman (screenplay), Jason Keller (written by), Miles Chapman (story) 

Runtime: 115min 

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Faran Tahir, Amy Ryan, Sam Neil, Vincent D' Onofrio, 50 Cent 

Prod: Summit Entertainment, Emmett / Furla Films, Mark Canton Productions, Envision Entertainment, Boies / Schiller Film Group, Atmosphere Entertainment MM 

Budget: $50 millions approx. 

If there´s something that audiences like is to have an innocent man, but witty and with tons of patience, trying to escape from confinement. It becomes even nicer if he´s yet to deal with a despicable jail staff plus a corrupt warden. 

Escape Plan has made use of this old formula, although adapting it to an action movie, using two of the toughest guys in the genre. 

The opening minutes has us looking at an inmate, clearly willing to escape. Something he will accomplish by doing his thing and with help from the outside, but for then giving himself up again. 

Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) has actually got nothing, to be called a criminal. A security expert and a sort of Houdini, he dedicates to seek for flaws in the prison system. Always with Hush (50 Cent) and Abigail (Amy Ryan) in his team, plus his three golden rules: to know the layout, understand the routine and have help from the outside or inside. Breslin is a genius escapist, about to take an ugly job, with variations he doesn´t know and where the only thing he´s got clear is that the character he is to play is terrorist Anthony Portos. 

Unexpectedly kidnapped, Breslin is taken to his new destination under sedation, not been able to see where he is going, to communicate it, and leaving his teammates with their hands tied. For the first time, Breslin must work in the dark. 

Escape Plan takes us to a high-tech prison with transparent cells, masked guards, cameras everywhere and even motion sensors. How to get out? I wonder if Harry Houdini would have known. 

Having just got in, Bresil receives the valuable advice "make friends", just before being saved by inmate Rottmayer, his "friend", when he was about to be attacked by thugs. 

The former governor of California, Arnold Schawrzenegger, is who plays this Rottmayer, a prisoner who is too nice, reliable and cooperative, after just having introduced himself, and who ends up making of the escape, lot more viable than what we have hoped it to be. As a matter of fact, when it is finally explained why he´s joined the newcomer, his presence on screen ends up resulting very forced. Arnold contributes so that the escape isn´t for Breslin, the big challenge we had initially expected. I believe I say it all when I add that without Arnold, the action would have taken too long to be waited. 

But at no time Escape Plan intends to be a realistic drama, or to deepen on the human bond, when deprived from freedom. To what it appeals is to entertain, but in the most basic sense. If Breslin hadn´t counted on with any of his rules, his level of planning would have been much higher, and the plot, more compelling. Nor can be said that the jail is so unbreakable, when there´s no one to check the inmates, foreign objects detectors or serious guards who are not distracted so easy. 

When action´s arrived, dozens of highly trained guards are unable to hit their targets, while Breslin or Javed (Faran Tahir), another breakaway companion have no inconvenient doing it, as if they were suddenly shooting experts.

To complete this hostile scenario is that Hobbes appears (Jim Caviezel) as the corrupt warden who cares nothing about his prisoners, and whose not lacking the desire to torment them. It is probably even necessary to be like this, as to run such a place. 

If building-up is what we don´t see much, action we do see and in good quantity. From a small fist fight between Stallone and Schwarzenegger, to a heads up with Drake (Vinnie Jones), a sadistic guard full of hatred. 

Escape Plan is ideal for the fans of brute strength, trickery and gunfire. If what we wanted instead, was a drama with human suffering, and showing us what living unfairly in confinement is it like, Frank Darabont´s Shawshank Redemption (1994) would have been a much better option. 

My rating: 6/10

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"Let´s cut it out with numbers"

Title: She's out of my league 

Year: 2010 

Genre: Comedy, Romance 

Director: Jim Field Smith 

Writer: Sean Anders, John Morris 

Runtime: 104min

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, TJ Miller, Mike Vogel, Nate Torrence, Lindsey Sloane, Krysten Ritter 

Prod.: DreamWorks SKG, Mosaic Media Group 

Budget: $20 millions approx. 

I doubt She´s out of my league could become part of the list of favorite movies of any movie lover. If I had to describe it in very few words, I could summarize it to: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl fight and boy and girl make up. That would not reveal the big spoiler, in a film that is very predictable. 

I must, however recognize, that being there many forgettable titles, and of similar characteristics, they hadn´t previously managed to call my attention like this one did. It´s name itself already gives us clues about a subject that could be appealing. 

She´s out of my league is about Kirk (Jay Barucel), a young, half attractive guy that unwittingly ends up dating a girl who is beautiful. Kirk, a security guard from the Pittsburgh airport, has the desire of making up with his ex-girlfriend Marnie (Lindsay Sloane). Her, a very pretty girl, but who is not as pretty on her inside. The point is that Marnie is already with another guy and has no interest in Kirk. From this, and the fact that Kirk is not the big deal, leads us to ask ourselves what girl could like him. 

Shortly afterwards, Kirk realizes that a passenger, with whom he had had a couple of words with before, has forgotten her cell at the airport. It´ll be in this way that, for giving it back to her he comes to see her again, and so Molly (Alice Eve) notices that there´s something about this guy that she likes. 

Then comes, one of the more interesting scenes in the film. Kirk and his friends Stainer (TJ Miller), Jack (Mike Vogel) and Devon (Nate Torrence) discuss while bowling, how weird would be that Kirk could date a girl who ´s a 10. Kirk listens to his friends giving scores to each other, in what apparently; he is being the most unlucky. They all agree in that he could barely reach a 6, giving his personality. 

From here on, it is very clear where the plot revolves. While the bond between Molly and Kirk keeps strengthened, nobody explains how this guy is going out with such a beauty. It´s not the lack of support from family and friends, what´s really surprising, but that Kirk himself finds it hard to believe his own luck. 

We live in a society, sometimes very superficial, were at times we make people into numbers, something that doesn´t help. Such is the case that, about to get intimate, Kirk shows up his incomprehension and lack of self-esteem, claiming not to understand what is happening. But what is it there to understand? Is what Molly doesn´t quite get. Which is, that a girl who Kirk and his friends have described as perfect, has decided to go out with a guy who is barely attractive, physically speaking, and therefore, not good enough to be with her. This offends Molly, because she doesn´t see things this way cause she´s been seen more than just a pretty face. 

This scene is set quite well and possess a dialogue that is consistent. Unlike other moments where we hear very poorly focused conversations and jokes that are absurd. 

Things, after the separation, happen as expected. Kirk now´s got tools to get back with his ex. An unhappy bitch that doesn´t deserve him, but who´s got Kirk for her anyways. It is then, that his friends decide to help him get Molly back, because they also take thought about it. Stainer, sometimes an idiot, now acts fine. Giving him a speech, he highlights Kirk all he´s worth, both as a friend, and as a human being, and how he should be with that girl that made him happy. He makes him see that both, he and Kirk were wrong, and that he fully deserves to be with her. 

Overall, from the beginning you can foresee the end of a plot which, although carried with some clumsiness, leaves us with a good message. It is also worth to mention that, at no time is boring, which to me is even the most important aspect.

My rating: 5/10

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"Love can only be seen through the heart"

Title: Blind Dating

Year: 2006

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Director: James Keach

Writer: Christopher Theo

Runtime: 95min

Cast: Chris Pine, Anjali Jay, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Jane Seymour, Stephen Tobolowski

Prod.: Samuel Goldwyn Films, Films Milcoz, Catfish Productions, Blind Guy Films, Theta Films

Being born premature Andy (Chris Pine) is doomed not to have a normal life. Lacking the faculty to see, with all of that it means, makes him not to have yet been with a girl, when he´s reached 22.

Blind Dating is a romantic comedy where there has been given more thought to its title (a very good pun, that gives clues about the movie), than to the kind of humor included, sometimes very silly. When we see, at first, Andy as a boy, running like a crazy through a park and crashing into a tree, one wonders what the purpose was, exactly. Scenes like this were not necessary. Where has there been children seen doing that?

Andy faces now a crucial stage, and where he must be brave and take risks. The blindness that has forced him to see the world in a different way could be reversed, according to doctors, although there is no history to prove it.

Together, it has been opened to him the chance of going out with girls, and where he has got on his side, to be a good-looking guy. Here the risk is emotional, if ever he could get hurt, if his disability was to scare them away. Let us also agree, and being realistic, that if other than being blind, he hadn´t been handsome, quite difficult he would have had it with this girls. So, in terms of casting Pine, they were great.

He sets then on finding candidates, while tests whether his qualified or nor for surgery, which works as a sub plot. All this part of preparations is dealt with delicacy, saving the comedy for his dates or for the sessions with his therapist, Dr. Evans (Jane Seymour).

Andy has got the help of his well-meaning brother Larry (Eddie Kaye Thomas). It´ll be him who introduces Andy to the lucky ones, as well as putting his limo at his service. The downside is that every girl brought by him is either very fast or very crazy, someone who will charge them for her time, or someone hyper sensitive. Let´s add to this that Andy wants something serious, while Larry only thinks with his dick. Luckily for Andy, he won´t, however, need his help to find his soul mate, a young Indian woman who works at the center where he is attended.

It is with this young girl, of different race and very different culture, which Andy feels, for the first time that something wonderful can happen. Another point of interest is precisely the culture shock and its implications, since Indian marriages are arranged. But before he falls in love or even goes out with Leeza (Anjali Jay), still await him dates that he would prefer to forget.

While there are funny moments, others could have been avoided for being so forced and unconvincing. The occurrence, for example, of hiding his condition to a young woman results in a scenario that´s too absurd. Anyone with half a brain would have started noticing in his eyes that peculiar look, very different from those who can see. Instead it creates a lack of balance between the two genres in Blind Dating.

As much as we can describe it as a comedy, I think, in fact, is its dramatic component that deserves more attention. Although it´s got the ingredients of every romantic title, not very often the main character is unable to describe his loved one physical look, unless he uses the touch.

It also talks about the importance of self-acceptance, however difficult it may be and even if we suffer from something irreversible and extremely limiting.

My rating: 4/10

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