Fields stained with Turkish blood. Villages and witches burned. High castles and deep catacombs. Bleak life full of vivid imagination. Such is the world Bathory, The Bloody Lady of Cachtice.
Elizabeth Bathory lets you see the film through the eyes of a mother, lover and ruler rather than the legendary serial killer. Throughout the film she strives to protect her children, love and land while ignoring her tainted reputation. The intrigues escalate. Blood is spilled. And a false myth is born.
Although there is a complex epic plot, the film feels more like a series of still pictures. There is a lot of symbolism and the plot slows down so that you can fully enjoy it. Apart from the story, the Bathory also takes some time to explain how myths are created and abused to serve one’s needs. The acting is outstanding but does not stand out as much as the Hungarian costumes that make the film look fresh.
Unfortunately the movie is significantly flawed by repetitive comic relief in which two monks use various inventions to spy on the countess. They seem to have come from another movie and make you question the taste of the writers. Should there be a version without those comedians a 9/10 rating would be appropriate.
10/26/2010
Bathory
The Killer Inside Me
Stanley Kubrick once called The Killer Inside Me, the 1952 Jim Thompson novel now the basis of a faithful adaptation by Michael Winterbottom, “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered”.
At festival screenings, audience members were said to be enraged at its violence and misogyny: Jessica Alba starring in a movie in which she’s shown getting her face repeatedly punched? All fairly disturbing, though not as much as the film’s opening titles, whose so-stylish graphics momentarily raise the spectre of a Guy Ritchie version of serial-killer pulp fiction.
Casey Affleck plays Lou Ford, a deputy sheriff in a small West Texan town. His colleagues tend towards gruffness and cynicism. By contrast, he is young - at one point he’s likened to a “boy scout with a badge” - innocent-looking, scrupulously courteous, the embodiment of Southern decency.
What his fellow law-enforcers don’t know is that he’ll also, for no reason at all, stub out a cigarette on the hand of a wino. It’s a dark side that emerges in full effect when he’s asked to chase off local prostitute Joyce (Alba): she slaps him, he more than repays in kind, and — perhaps unexpectedly — they have an affair.
The Killer Inside Me, whose John Curran script lifts some of its dialogue straight from the source material, is told mostly from the perspective of Lou. He appears in almost every scene, and is, it soon emerges, not just unstable, but an unreliable anchor. What is it that happened to him as a child? Was he abused, or is he a schizophrenic? Is he really as in love with Joyce as he claims to be? Is he even in love with his long-term girlfriend, the sweet and seemingly innocent Amy (Kate Hudson)? These questions are never wholly resolved.
In 9 Songs (2004), Winterbottom charted the rise and fall of a relationship through the ultra-candid depiction of a couple’s sexual practices. Here, he depicts Ford’s parallel life by showing him, in repetitive close-up, belting, spitting on and punching the women in his life — to the point that, in Alba’s case, they’re almost unrecognisable. It’s genuinely horrid in a way that most screen violence never is. That Ford tells his victims he loves them as he obliterates them is equally disorientating.
But to what end? Many filmmakers in the last decade would disagree, but I’m not sure serial killers tell us anything of great value about human nature. I’m also less convinced of Thompson’s narrative brilliance: this is, for long stretches, a listless, meandering film that’s not helped by Affleck’s deliberately introverted, almost opaque performance.
What’s usually so refreshing about Winterbottom’s films — his refusal to traffic in easy emotion, his lack of interest in individual psychology — works against him in a story of this kind. He’s never made a movie in America before, and struggles to make its landscapes prickly or visceral, or to get his actors to be as improvisatory or free-ranging as he normally does. The result is — body-pummelling aside — minor and distinctly unchilling fare.
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The Experiment
Thankfully, I was given the oppurtunity to see "The Experiment" recently. I believe the film is coming straight-to-DVD next month but, for a low price, I was able to see it at a small screening in Boston. Fancy that. Well, since I am the first person to review this movie on Movieweb, I should probably make it good. I should include the most aspect and detail on the film as well. Plus: this will be my final review on Movieweb, so I wanna go out with a bang. Why I have retired from writing reviews is because, on Movieweb, I simply cannot edit them, and for me, its hard to enjoy a movie more than once and my opinons always change. Believe me, I will still use the site, I just won't share my newest reviews anymore. Anyhow, that has no matter to "The Experiment" at all. Lets get to that, shall we.....?
"The Experiment" is based on a true story. Although this film does Hollywood it up a bit it was still shocking from my aspect that this actually happened. But, unlike the film, the Experiment in real life only last three days because things got a little too out of hand. Even so, just the idea of it is very unique. Also: "The Experiment" takes place in present time, the actual experiment took place in 1971 by a team of people led by Professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo.
[SPOILERS AT THIS POINT]
The movie starts off a little slow, but, things literally pick up sixteen minutes into the film. The movie focuses, in the beginning, on Travis [played by Adrien Brody]. Travis is a pretty big-hearted guy, he doesn't believe in violemce or any of that sort. Although that is never really said in the movie, you can tell. That was how good the film's writing and Brody's acting was, but, we'll get to that later. Anyhow, Travis is like anyone else. He has the love of his life and he's struggling in this world. After getting laid off, he goes with an easy way to make money, go under an Experiment for two weeks for 100 grand. Everything seemed simple...
After being selected, Travis and twenty five other men are taken to a facility moduled like a Prison block. There they are monetered by cameras and put under a critical study. The men are divided into two different things: Prisoners and guards. The experiment is to pretty much play the roles they were given for two weeks without using an violence. If violence, one person quits, or any rules are broken,....no one gets paid.
With everything seeming like a fun game, things changed quickly. Barris, played by Forest Whitaker, who was under as a Guard, seemed like the nicest guy in the world in the movie's beginning. But, finding a sweet controlling addiction, Barris gets too deep into his role and him and the guards treat the Prisoners like Hell. But instead of using violence, they use humiliation. Who would've thought that could be worse than strong violence.
Travis does not agree with the way the guards are running everything, but as a prisoner, cannot do anything. When Guards take things to seriously, throughout the film Travis tries to hold peace since it is only an "experiment" and not actually "prison". But, bad after bad, Travis and the others must choose between madness for two weeks straight or a lost chance at 100 Grand.
The movie is one of the best thrillers I've seen in a while. Its very shocking in some spots and very, very entertaining. Nothing makes this movie anything less than PERFECTION.
NO MORE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT:
ACTING:
Adrien Brody has had quite a good year. First he starred in "Splice", a visual wonder in my opinon, but nothing more. He starred in "Predators", which to me, I thought was only okay. His first two of the year were only alright in my own opinon, but, "The Experiment" might just be his best yet. His performence as Travis was very belivable. He did perfect. Forest Whitaker, where this is his third film this year also, stars as Barris, and damn, was he great in this. Usually, Whitaker isn't my favorite of actors but he played a damn good villian [ish] in this movie. He was just this hard character to understand and Whitaker pulled it off incredibly. Cam Gigadent, who stars in movies like, "Twilight", and "Never Back Down" definitly shows that hes a good bad guy once again. Alongside Barris the whole time, Gigadent's character is a great second-in-command to the Guards. As for the film's acting, everything was very well performed. None of the performences were a bother to me. All just perfection.
WRITING:
Paul Scheuring, who wrote for the show "Prison Break" definitly knows how to write something thrilling. This movie's rich dialog and stressing scenes are written wonderfully. He has also written, "A Man Apart", which was a cop-drama that started Vin Diesal like seven or eight years ago.
DIRECTION:
Paul Scheuring also makes a directorial debut as well with "The Experiment" and the direction shots on the film couldn't be any better. I mean, I didn't have any problem with the film's direction. Everything about "The Experiment" is just pure greatness. Its a shame this is a straight to DVD.
OVERALL:
Overall, an awesome, suspensful, dark thrill ride from start to finsih. When "The Experiment" hits the DVD shelves I recommend buying it because its worth every dollar. I know I will. All performences are spot on and the writing is rich. All and all, watch this.
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Bear movie
Let me begin by saying that this movie was obviously shot on a limited budget but this still could have been a cult classic. Let's start with the plot shall we: Two young couples get stranded in the middle of nowhere after having decided to take a shortcut (yes yes, very original). They quickly learn that they have just entered bear territory and soon they find themselves surrounded by hungry grizzly bears.
Simple story indeed but just like I thought "Five Across The Eyes" succeeded in many ways, I really thought this would succeed in the exact same ways since it's shot in a similar style. Now the movie kicks off quite fast and keeps going at a rapid pace. The actors are surprisingly great and the panic feels real. You know what else is real? The bears! Not CGI-crap, these are actual bears... well for most of the time anyway. Every now and then we see a VERY fake-looking snout and the occasional friendly-looking cotton-paw with - what looks like - soft claws. Indeed they seem to have been using an over-sized teddy bear in quite a few scenes but the shots are so quick that it doesn't really do any harm to the movie.
However, the thing that does harm the movie are all the obvious goofs in it. The movie takes place at night-time, yet some scenes are so OBVIOUSLY shot in the middle of the day that it doesn't even look as if they tried to cover this up. What's even worse is that we see the "fence" surrounding the area in several frames. There's even one point where we can see the boom operator clear as day (trust me, you can't miss it). What started off as a potentially awesome movie was soon dragged down by an amateurish crew and increasingly ridiculous dialogues. Still, if you're a fan of killer bears, I think it's worth checking out, it should've been a cult classic but will most likely end up in the bargain bin unless they do some serious changes and re-shoots for the American release (the DVD reviewed is the UK DVD - which by the way was bare-bones - no extras except for some trailers).
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Vacation with Derek
Their characters may hate each other, but Life with Derek stars (and now, Vacation with Derek headliners) Ashley Leggat and Michael Seater are the kind of fake siblings small-screen dreams are made of. They love working together, and are willing to do anything to keep the show that launched their careers going.
The duo have been filming the Family Channel sitcom since 2005. It’s essentially a modern Brady Bunch – two divorcees, Nora (Joy Tanner, Cold Squad) and George (John Ralston, Living In Your Car), try to merge their families into one.
Although the whole family is featured, Leggat and Seater’s characters, Casey and Derek, the always-opposing head kids of their respective families, are the focus and the main reason for the show’s success.
“Ashley and I got along so well from the auditions,” Seater says. “She had this frenzied feistiness that made her this alpha that had the cojones to go up against a jerk like Derek.”
“I think you had a pretty big part too,” Leggat says with a smile, adding, “He’s great.”
Life with Derek’s final season aired on Family last March, but Casey and Derek are still all over the tube. The show picked up a Gemini award for best children’s series last year (both leads previously nabbed acting noms; Seater won in 2006). In addition, Family airs repeats of the comedy daily, and the show-wrapping movie Vacation with Derek makes its debut this Friday.
The film, which was shot in Algonquin Park last September, follows Casey, Derek and co. as they head to a Northern Ontario chalet owned by Nora’s mother (Kate Trotter, Murdoch Mysteries) the summer before university. There, the step-siblings must work together to save the wildlife-friendly property, which is being threatened by a local developer who wants to turn it into a luxury resort.
Over the summer, Casey and Derek learn to appreciate one another’s quirks. Smarty-pants Casey gets uncharacteristically carefree, ditching her bookworm ways to tango with a sexy waiter (So You Think You Can Dance Canada winner, Nico Archambault).
Meanwhile, usually reckless ladies’ man Derek leaves a hot local girl behind to help his siblings prep an environmental protest. By switching roles, they learn more about themselves, and each other, than ever before.
Leggat and Seater feel it was inevitable Casey and Derek would learn to accept and adapt to each other’s personalities, because, frankly, they’re growing up. “We went through high school and were about to start university too,” Leggat, who turns 24 this September, explains. “Everyone changes in those years. I know I did.”
“I’ve been the same person since I was two years old …” Seater, 23, adds with a laugh.
“Michael is unchangeable,” Leggat continues, playfully cutting off her faux bro. “But we love him that way.”
All jokes aside, Casey and Derek are not the only ones evolving. Since wrapping Vacation with Derek, Leggat guest-starred on Citytv’s Murdoch Mysteries and Cartoon Network’s Unnatural History. She also just wrapped MTV’s Made movie, in which she plays the exact opposite of Casey: a “very mean girl.”
Seater, on the other hand, starred in 18 to Life, a CBC sitcom about an underage married couple and their opposing in-laws. He plays the groom, a conservative boy named Tom, who is madly in love with his neighbour/wife, Jessie (Degrassi: The Next Generation’s Stacey Farber). The show’s status is currently unclear, but it will likely return midseason.
Seater filmed Vacation with Derek right after 18 to Life’s first season, which he says took a toll on him, professionally. After almost flubbing his first scene, featuring new characters, Seater found his way back after reuniting with Leggat and the rest of his onscreen family.
“Even when you’ve done a show for four years, you can be nervous when you first get into it,” Seater says, turning towards his co-star. “But once I see Ashley, and she calls me Derek, and I call her Casey, it’s like (snaps his fingers).”
Although there are no plans to extend the series, Seater and Leggat are not ready to say goodbye to Casey and Derek, or each other.
“For a few seasons, we knew it wasn’t goodbye. But finishing Season 4, we weren’t sure if that was the end,” Seater says. “Doing press for the movie now, its like, ‘Well, is this it? Is this the end of the show?’ But it seems like we’ll be doing this until we’re about 90.”
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East End Angels
East End Angels: It's vacation. 12-year-olds Maja, Rikke and Ohna have big ambitions to not lift a finger this summer, but then the police find drugs hidden in the restaurant. Saigon House is closed and Ohna's big brother gets arrested.The girls know that he is innocent but he won't get out of jail before the drug league is exposed. It's a case for the East End Angels...
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The Killing Jar
Put seven people in a diner. Have a guy come in with a shotgun and start blowing them away. That's entertainment.
Well, no, it's not; but that's about all "The Killing Jar" has going for it.
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Michael Madsen is the guy with the shotgun (naturally), in this little piece of sickness written and directed by Mark Young. He stops by a diner in the middle of nowhere just after the locals there have heard reports of a murder over the radio.
Those locals being suspicious country folks and Madsen's character looking and acting like surly Michael Madsen, all eyes fall on the stranger. He takes offense to their suspicions, walks out to his truck, comes back with the gun and the fun begins.
Actually, there's little fun involved, for either the audience or the diner patrons. Madsen's character blows away a local cop and the cook; then some wheeler-dealer (Jake Busey) drops by the diner planning on paying the aforementioned murderer, who it turns out was a hitman for hire. Only it wasn't Madsen; it must be someone else in the diner.
The plot thickens. Except, it doesn't really; it just breaks into little 10-minute chunks where the guy with the gun tortures somebody else in the diner. All for no apparent reason aside from the presumed bloodlust of audience members who can do without silly things like logic, motivation and character.
Harold Perrineau ("Lost") plays a guy who just stopped for a cup of coffee; Amber Benson ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") plays the lone waitress. Let's just say they'll be watching the Oscars from home next year.
As will writer-director Young, unless he can come up with something more than a dominoes-inspired kill fest for his next movie. "The Killing Jar" is DOA.
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Beneath Hill 60
WAR is hell, as we know, but it's also hellish to film. The First World War is the most hellish and the Western Front its most diabolical part. The scale is hard to understand, even if you walk the ground, as many Australians now do. Almost a century later, filmmakers still baulk: it's too big and too horrible to depict with accuracy and honesty.
As awful as Gallipoli was, it's a skirmish in comparison to the Western Front. And somewhat inconveniently for storytellers, Australians were only a small part of the massed British, French and other armies fighting the Germans and their allies. These obstacles help to explain why Australia has never produced a great movie about this part of the war, though the stories are rich.
Australian actor Jeremy Sims made his directing debut with Last Train to Freo four years ago. He collaborates here with David Roach, longtime scriptwriter for Yahoo Serious. Sims and Roach have signed up for the task of depicting the Western Front with bravado, like the men whose story they tell. The surprise is that they succeed, to a great extent. This is our first really good movie about the Western Front. It's not faultless, but it does what it does very well.
It is about the events leading up to the attack of June 7, 1917, at Messines Ridge, near Ypres in Belgium. Nineteen huge mines went up that night, creating the biggest explosion the world had seen, killing so many German troops that the number has never been determined. It was said that David Lloyd George heard it in London.
The two mines under Hill 60, a German stronghold, were detonated by Australian miners, members of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company. C.E.W. Bean, in his official history of the Australians in World War I, wrote that ''both English and German records agree that in the Hill 60 system in 1915-17, underground warfare reached a tension that was not surpassed anywhere on the British front''. For seven months, those tunnels were held by the 1st ATC.
Trying to film this in ditches near Townsville would seem like a bad idea, but Roach and Sims have turned the difficulties to their advantage. Most of the film takes place in trenches and tunnels, and they keep the camera below the parapet, so that we don't see the whole battlefield. This allows them to create limited but exceptionally accurate sets. It also gives us a sense of the claustrophobia and monotony of the soldiers' lives. Put your head up and you'll lose it, the old soldiers tell the young ones. We only need to see this once to learn the lesson.
The early scenes include an extraordinary tracking shot of a British trench under artillery fire. Lieutenant Woodward (Brendan Cowell, in a superb performance) has just arrived to take command of a company of the Australian tunnellers. A terrified young sapper, Private Tiffin (Harrison Gilbertson), leads him to the officer's dugout, through a barrage of shells. Men are blown to pieces behind them, or buried in the endless mud. The noise shakes your organs. Inside the dugout, the boy private collapses, while Woodward shakes hands with Captain Bill McBride (Anthony Hayes), an old mate from the Charters Towers Mining School. A British officer objects to the private whimpering in the corner. ''For God's sake Australia, this is an officers' dugout.''
Woodward's men regard him with suspicion because he was slow to join up. Sergeant Fraser (Steve Le Marquand) doesn't conceal his contempt. Norman Morris (Gyton Grantley) wavers between these two powerful men. Hunter Valley miner Jim Sneddon (Alan Dukes) and his son Walter (Alex Thompson) are soon won over by Woodward's quiet qualities as both a miner and a leader. Many of these characters are based on real people, using real names. Chris Haywood is a crusty British officer who gets windy in the tunnels.
The triumph of the film is its re-creation of the war underground, a visceral, claustrophobic netherworld where war is being reinvented. The men try to dig quietly in sandy soils full of water, while German tunnellers listen nearby, trying to find them and blow their tunnels. Australian listening posts try to do the same, so that the candlelit tension is sometimes cut by eruptions of shattering violence at close range, ending in darkness and blood. It is chilling to watch, but it's all true.
As he leads his men, Woodward flashes back to north Queensland before the war, when he courted his 16-year-old sweetheart, Marjorie (Bella Heathcote). These scenes are meant to take us deeper inside the longings of the now promoted Captain Woodward, but they are overused. They start to interrupt the pace and intensity of the film, which are the main assets. Beneath Hill 60 is a considerable achievement: it shows that the Western Front can be dramatised, and on a budget. More, please.
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My Own Love Song
This film is about a wheelchair bound singer and a man with psychiatric problems who embark on a road trip to escape from their broken dreams in their hometown.
The initial twenty minutes are alright, portraying the love hate relationship between the two leads. However, once the angels and the fantasy elements set in, the film becomes chaos. What are those pastel birds doing on the streets? What about those images of angels in the sky? Instead of being innovative, it appears self indulgent and confusing. The pacing is so slow, with too many scenes that are made to look artistic but are so boring. The prime example is the scene when they sit under a tree lit in red. The scene is beautiful to look at but quite a torture to sit through.
The ending has the potential to be very emotional. However, it just does not have that effect. The ending has a heartfelt song, but there is inadequate closure. It is not uplifting or touching enough either. "My Own Love Song" could have been emotional and engaging, but it is a greatly misfired attempt.
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The Switch
I discovered something important about myself when I watched The Switch. I discovered that I can endure 101 minutes of pure saccharine filmmaking without catching The Diabetes. I have no problem with earnest filmmaking that’s unafraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. I do have a problem with transparently manipulative filmmaking that wastes the comic talents of its lead actor. A few clever one-liners sneak past this sitcom-level humor, but The Switch stands more as an endurance test of sugary storytelling rather than a heart-warming picture.
The Switch is a movie I can see as being edgy at one point before it was dulled down completely. The story follows Wally (Jason Bateman), a hapless, neurotic curmudgeon who’s stuck in the friend zone with Kassie (Jennifer Aniston). When Kassie wants to get pregnant, she hires alpha-male Roland (Patrick Wilson) to be a sperm donor, which of course Wally resents. At an “insemination party” (which everyone at the party treats like a baby shower instead of something that’s shows we’ve run out of occasions to celebrate), sad drunken Wally accidentally pours Roland’s little men down the drain and then replaces the sample with his own. Wally then blacks-out and forgets the whole evening, Kassie gets pregnant, moves away, and comes back seven years later with a six-year-old kid named Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) who is weird and neurotic like Wally. Wally figures out he’s Sebastian’s father and then has to finally man up and tell Kassie the truth about the seed-swap and his true feelings for her or else she’ll go off with Roland, who has also come back into her life.
“She wouldn’t know prime sperm if it came along and slapped her in the face.”
There are moments where The Switch, which was originally called “The Baster” because of the device a woman uses for artificial insemination, has an edge and a fun joke. Those moments add up to maybe five minutes of the one hour and forty-one minute runtime. All the edges of the movie have been sanded down because what the film thinks is “edgy” is actually softer than the most banal TV sitcom (Two and a Half Men). The kid is weird because he’s a hypochondriac and uses big words. It’s funny because the kid thinks he’s full of diseases! Dark (but not really)!
It’s also not clear why Wally has feelings for Kassie other than she’s pretty. She has no character and I don’t think Aniston even gets to crack a joke. Kassie’s purpose in the movie is to provide a plot and joke set-ups to Wally. While I think Bateman is currently one of the best actors out there, he couldn’t look more bored in this movie. Part of that is because Wally is detached and indifferent to the world, but even his pessimistic quips are delivered without much energy. The observational deadpan that Bateman has pulled off so beautifully in the past feels sullen and disinterested in this movie.
But what really grates in The Switch is the unrelenting sentiment. Here’s the entire movie: Wally is a jerk but he becomes a better person when he discovers his paternal instincts. All the scenes between Wally and Sebastian revolve around Wally realizing a bizarre and comedic similarity between the two and then a moment of bonding. There are at least four scenes in the movie that serve to remind the audiences that Wally is an innately good father to Sebastian.
For such a weightless film, you feel every second of The Switch. When your biggest laughs come from Jeff Goldblum (who plays Wally’s friend) essentially doing a parody of himself, you have a serious problem with your comedy. Because it puts sappiness ahead of humor, The Switch feels more like a Hallmark drama rather than the edgy comedy indicated by its premise.
Rating: D-
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