Screenhead

It’s extraordinarily difficult to write a review of a movie like The Fourth Kind because it’s not really a movie so much as it is an agenda.

Clearly, someone desperately wants us to believe that what we’re seeing is actually really really REALLY REAL, and won’t be satisfied until, my guess is, we start pestering our Congress critters for answers.  I’m not sure.  Because I’ve never left a movie so utterly confused, and I’ve seen David Croenenburg movies.

This one follows Dr. Abigail Emily Tyler, who is played by Milla Jovovich, who actually TELLS us that’s what she’ll be doing in the beginning of the movie.  And we’ll be following her around as she conducts a sleep disorder study on the people of Nome, Alaska.  Now, Nome is downright infamous for being hard to reach, but apparently it’s also got a serious missing persons problem, and it’s somehow become the FBI travel destination of choice, garnering over two thousand official visits when neighbor Anchorage, who has something like seventy times the population, rates only about three hundred visits in that same time frame.

Now, it’s hard to tell at first glance just how much of this is real and how much of it so utterly fake as to be a complete pantload, because the movie is trying so very desperately hard to convince us that EVERYTHING WE SEE IS HAPPENING FOR REALS, YO, by virtue of running split screen so often I thought I was watching 24.  They’ll do two splits and three splits and four splits and four splits with rotating frames.  It got to the point where I wondered, is this a movie or a Final Cut Pro demo?  And they’ll run, almost ad nauseum, “real footage” alongside footage of the actors, to try and cement that belief.

I’ll freely admit that this is some creepy stuff–when that guy started levitating I got a little freaked out, and Abigail Tyler “herself” under hypnosis was a cold chill up my spine but do I believe this actually went down?  No.

See, one great line from the movie that manages to describe the movie in its entirety is where one of the “patients” is muttering that he’s okay, and “Dr. Tyler” swings in with “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”  And that’s exactly what I thought of this movie.  Yes, okay, you’re going to RELENTLESSLY show me this “real footage” and insist, as loudly and vociferously as possible that it’s real, and frankly, I kind of doubt it.

Folks, this has allegedly been going on since the year 2000.  But somehow it took almost TEN YEARS for someone to exploit it?  Come ON.  We’re talking about a Hollywood scene so desperate that TWO GARFIELD MOVIES looked like a good idea but we’ve got allegedly actual footage of a woman shrieking that she’s god in SUMERIAN and NO ONE’S ran with that ball yet?

The Screenhead Ten Scale joins me in a dismissive back of hand “bah” to this creepy but horrendously disjointed fright fest and acknowledges that the idea is pretty scary but forces my suspension of disbelief engines to glow white hot and give off an ominous whining noise.  Thus, it hands this incredulous horror romp a five out of ten for being creepy yet not even vaguely credible.

Johnny Depp may join Angelina Jolie in The Tourist, a film that is experiencing many, many casting and directing changes – yet is set for production this February.   

If Depp joined Jolie, he would play an American tourist drawn into a web of intrigue and danger by a female Interpol agent (Jolie) as she attempts to locate a criminal who was once her lover.

You may be asking yourself, wait…I thought Sam Worthington was playing this part or Tom Cruise.  You’re thoughts are correct but changes happen in the film biz fast and furious.  Even Charlize Theron was attached to play Jolie’s part.

I am not sure about all the directors, but Alfonso Curaron is at the head of the line to take on this juicy and plum gig.

I like the idea of Depp and Jolie working together on a spy thriller. Don’t you?

(Source)

Well, folks, since the “stop Uwe Boll” petition crapped out at just over three hundred fifty thousand signatures, well short of the million required to put an end to Herr Doktor Uwe Boll’s movie career once and for all, he’ll be coming out with a new movie called–get this–Darfur.

As always, it includes a preposterous mix of has-beens and almost A-listers like Matt Frewer (this one hit me especially hard), Edward Furlong (what, no Crow knockoffs hiring?), Kristanna Loken (yeah, the T-X Kristanna Loken) and Billy Zane (possibly as part of an arbitration agreement after his distribution company so clearly let down Herr Doktor for Postal) come together to bring us a movie about the war-and-genocide capitol of the world.

Oh, and the best part?  Seems Herr Doktor couldn’t be bothered to get copy editors around to make sure the trailer had no typos.  Follow this link to check it out for yourselves and see the wonder he has spawned.

I’ll admit though, the movie itself doesn’t look that bad for a change.  Maybe Boll outside of video game knockoffs isn’t a complete disaster, but we’ll have some time to wait before we find out.

Ken Robinson gets to add American Violet to his DVD library, congratulations!

Based on a true story, American Violet is a look at the harsh reality of injustice.

American Violet has been described as “AMAZING! The first must-see film for African-Americans in 2009,” by BET.com and Jeffrey Lyons of NBC Reel Talk has said “A powerful, compelling true story of a woman of courage.” The movie is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Inspired by a true story, American Violetfollows the struggle of a young African-American mother to clear her name after being wrongly arrested for dealing drugs in an impoverished Texas town. An honest woman with no hard evidence to justify the accusation, she is forced to risk everything in order fight unfair prosecution. The film stars touted newcomer Nicole Beharie, Academy Award nominee Alfre Woodard, Will Patton, Academy Award nominee Michael O’Keefe, Tim Blake Nelson, Emmy Award winner Charles S. Dutton and Xzibit.

It is truly a compelling story that must be watched about survival and the persistence to never give up for your god-given right to be free.  

“EXCELLENT performances by Beharie, Woodard, Nelson and Patton”- The Washington Post 

“POWERFUL performance by newcomer Nicole Behaire” – B+, Entertainment Weekly 

“IDEAL MOVIE for an ideal time” -San Francisco Chronicle

Remember how, when I wrote about The Haunting of Winchester House, how GREAT I thought it was that The Asylum was finally getting out of the mockbuster trend and no longer Asylumizing movies?

Sadly, that’s all gone as The Asylum releases 2012 Supernova, which is pretty much taking on 2012.  The only problem is that, of course, The Asylum doesn’t have anywhere NEAR the cash required to make those kind of special effects.

The plot, though, is actually pretty interesting–two hundred years ago, a star exploded and launched an enormous wave of radiation.  Sadly, two hundred years ago was apparently during the War of 1812, because it’s about to hit in much-popularized 2012.  So now a group of scientists is out to launch a whole load of nukes into the upper atmosphere so they can augment the Earth’s natural anti-radiation shielding.

I’ll admit, though, that The Asylum clearly does the best it can with what it has to work with.  What baffles me, though, is that they try to take on this monster projects with the most minimalist budgets you can imagine.  It’s like trying to eat a Ho-Ho the size of a Buick, and doing it with a knife and fork.

The result, however, of trying to load a bunch of AA batteries in a space designed for a Diehard is that the whole thing has this vaguely repetitive feel in which a simulated disaster happens, then we react to that disaster, then another one happens, and so on and so forth without much in the way of an overarching plotline to hold it all together.

There will be plenty of thrills here–watching people try to escape from things blowing up and whatnot–but are these thrills going to be enough to hold the overall picture together?  Well, that’s your call, in the end.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile,  isn’t so impressed and thus hands the newest Asylum knockoff a fair enough five out of ten.  it clearly tried, but it just couldn’t tackle what it set out to try.

In Contention brought this clip of Gabourey Sidibe on “Ellen” to my attention.  What a great interview that shows the difference between a character and the real person who plays that character on the silver screen.

I’ve got to give a hand to Disney for making the first Prince of Persia trailer very compelling while letting us in on the story. Usually, first trailers try to tease us, so we are asking for more information about the story and that can be not so fun. 

Disney’s first trailer of Prince of Persia tells us what the story is about and we get a flavor of the tongue and cheek between the prince and the princess, although I am not quite sure what  Ben Kingsley’s role is, accept he is the bad guy.  Is he also interested in the princess or does he just want the dagger?

Young man as a wolf is something to behold. Don’t you think? 

The more I see Taylor Lautner with his pack of wolves the more I am interested in the Twilightmovies — owooooo!