Twenty-Twelve, it just rolls off the tongue

I’m still doing a post-viewing rehash in my head, trying to remember when, or even if, in recent years I’ve watched a more enjoyable film than 2012.

District 9 comes to mind, it’s at least that good but hard to call it better.

Great script. For a change you can watch a complete story well told in the old school mode, having a beginning, a middle, and then (surprise!) an end. Quite unlike so much of the crap around these days. Maybe it’s a Mayan concept and the green lighters still don’t get it yet?

Great director. Roland Emmerich has extracted fine performances all around, and managed to keep a cohesive plot covered (see above) and show it all on the screen. I believe that if this wasn’t a Sony release, this time the computer  would have been a nice but slightly used MacBook Pro (updated from the beautiful black 5300 Powerbook Jeff Goldblum used to save the world inIndependence Day), not a steaming pile of VAIO. Ah, but I digress…..

Great acting. John Cusack, in my opinion, can be considered a serious contender to jump past Tom Hanks and become the Henry Fonda sort of “everyman” of our time.

Cusack’s become like you and me (or at least me) in that way.

The hard to beat original

And by the way, as you may have heard, there are at least a few interesting special effects shots on the screen in this film, and they’re all done very nicely.

How many times can you say “How the fuck did they do that” ?

Paranormal Activity Jumps Out of ‘TheBox’

It seems that I’m sort of paraphrasing myself here, but as much as I ragged on Paranormal Activity a few days ago, I’m sure that they now owe a debt of thanks to the makers of “The Box” for lifting them off the top (or perhaps that should be off the bottom?) of the list of the worst films of the year?

Possible spoiler, as if it’s possible to spoil a piece of shit…..

I remember reading this story line years ago, wherein someone is given a box with a button on it, and by pushing the button they will cause someone that they’ve never met, somewhere far away,  to die.

If you manage to sit through this floater, I’m sure that by the end you’ll be hoping that there’s a box somewhere with your name on it, and someone you’ve never met has lifted that dome cover off, and now their finger is hovering over the button…….

James Marsden + Cameron Diaz = James Cameron?

Even a much younger and less tired looking Cameron Diaz couldn’t have saved this one, what with her “Serious Acting” and all that.

Oh well, how many days was that before “2012” opens?

Pair-of-Normal Active Stupid People

As much as I raved about “District 9” a post or two ago, I have have no choice but to take a different stance with “Paranormal Activity“, a film that’s shot in such a spastic style that it could even make Lars von Trier get seasick.

The true shocker would have been to have a hidden camera when I saw this in the Star Theater when the lights unexpectedly came up, one that would have captured the horror in the faces of the audience to find out that they paid $10.00 to sit through this train wreck, the latest in a long line of recent films that were unable to come up with an ending. Larry the janitor strikes again, I guess.

The major bragging rights for this overhyped video so far have been that it was produced for only $15,000. After watching it I have to assume that most, if not all of that amount was spent on a good caterer that kept the director and two actors (who also seemed to have been working as the co-directors of photography and / or co-camera operators) very well fed.

Especially one of them, but not that there’s anything wrong with that. And that’s a big “butt”.

It seems that there could have been a makeup or wardrobe person involved, but that person should have been able to phone it in, same for the sound and grip and electric department folks, if they existed.

Again, not that there’s anything wrong with that.