leeroy711 Blog

Under discussion:

Rope  (1948)

            I haven't seen a movie that has blown me away like this in a long time. Hitchcock's idea was to make this film in one continuous shot. Unfortunately, this was not possible at the time because the cameras back then only held about ten minutes worth of film. In an act of pure ingenuity, Hitchcock used a technique that made it seem as though this was only one shot. About every ten minutes, your attention is directed to an intimate object for about two or three seconds and then back to the story. This is the point at which the film is cut and reloaded into the camera. The editing is done to make this transition seamless and the audio track never cuts, giving the impression that it was one camera movement.

            The acting in this film is fantastic. I have always maintained that Jimmy Stewart has the most powerful screen presence in all of film. His characters demand attention, simply by virtue of his demeanor. What makes this film great however, are the subtleties portrayed by his character. Keep in mind; it is not until the very end of this film, that he actually vocalizes what he has been thinking. But we are all very aware of exactly what is going on in his head from the moment his first suspicions arise.

            I can’t really say enough about this one, I’ve only seen a handful of Hitchcock and none have ever disappointed me. But this is the one so far, stands out above the rest. It pulled me in from the first scene and kept me thinking about it several days later.

Under discussion:

Brick  (2006)

Overall, I liked this film. It had an intelligent plot, better than average camerawork and a couple of pretty descent characters. I didn’t have a problem with the jargon, per se… I only had a problem with the backdrop.

I generally think that this would have made an incredible film had it not been told from a high-school student’s point of view. This film has all of the classic clichés and nuances of a great piece of film noir. We have the classic femme fatale, the lead characters spends most of his time getting beat up, and oh yeah, the jargon. The problem with these things is that the fact that these are high-school students playing them out. It really gave me the impression, much of the time that I was watching an elaborate high-school play in which the kids were portraying adults. Unfortunately it was more of the other way around.

I really didn’t see any aspect of this story that hinged on the age of the characters. It makes me wonder why it was made in this way. Overall I liked it but I did find myself laughing at some of the parts that (because of the inappropriate backdrop) just delved into the silly spoof realm of film.

Under discussion:

The Cry  (2008)

The Cry (2007)

* ½ stars out of 5

Directed by: Bernadine Santistevan

Starring: Christian Camargo, Adriana Dominguez and Carlos Leon

Running Time: 80 minutes

Rated: R

Released: 2007

Language: English

Synopsis:

The Cry is a modern telling of an old Hispanic folk legend. La Llorana (the crying woman) is somewhat of a ghost in Mexico, Central and South America. In some versions of the story, she was a woman scorned, who got her revenge by drowning her children in the local river.

This movie takes La Llorana to New York City’s Central Park, where an epidemic of missing children is putting the city into a frantic state. We follow a pair of detectives (Camargo and Leon) as they investigate the disappearances and a young mother (Dominguez) who has visions that drive her to investigate the legend and the abductions herself.

Review:

            I don’t watch a lot of horror movies and this one illustrates why. It seems to me that the line between cliché and parody keeps getting thinner and thinner. To clarify for any aspiring horror director reading this: Parody is an over-exaggeration of an idea or technique that is a serious attempt to be funny. Cliché is an over-exaggeration of an idea or technique that is a funny attempt to be serious. This film was full of the latter.

            Any movie that has the typical (see cliché above), person drawing scary pictures while in a trance scene, is going to have to work pretty hard to regain my interest. I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen this done and it is just getting sad.

            The second cliché I saw was the ever-so-popular super scary whispering voices heard in the heads of the main characters. This too is neither original nor frightening. It has been done more times than the previously mentioned scary picture drawing scene and with less of an affect.

            The third and most egregious stereotypical, low-rate horror tactic used in this film was the quick flash of scary images on the screen while no one is expecting it technique. This serves the film two purposes; it saves the budget when longer shots of quality gore special effects cannot be afforded and it also allows the editing to create the startling scene as a substitute for real suspense and horror.

            When I received this screener, I was a bit intrigued by the folk lore of La Llorana so I decided to do some research on it before I watched it. There was nothing extraordinarily interesting about the legend but I did take note in the fact that throughout different parts of the Hispanic world, there are vast differences in the original story of La Llorana. I was very interested in seeing which of the several versions of the story this film decided to adapt. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed when, rather than picking one, it simply garbled all of the versions together. This really ate into the entire concept of the legend. The film makers even went a step further and added their own aspects to the legend. In one part, the detectives are explained, “she gets her power from the water.” I think they borrowed this idea from another folk legend from the East, his name was Godzilla.

I can’t really say much of anything good about this flick. The acting was not horrible, but it was not very good either. The ending was both disturbing and predictable, but not satisfying. I could point out that the character of Maria (Adriana Dominguez) was nice to look at throughout the film and I enjoyed the music performed by Del Castillo. But I won’t.  Overall, there was no aspect of this movie that made it worth the time I spent watching it.