Pitch Black

You aren’t afraid of the dark are you? Well if not, then I highly recommend checking out Pitch Black starring Vin Diesel as the main character named Riddick. The movie starts out with a malfunction on a spaceship simply meant to take people from one planet to another as a sort of ferry. As a result of the malfunction, the ship crashes on an uninhabited planet characterized only as an ever lasting desert wasteland with three suns keeping the planet under constant heat and light. The female copilot of the ship named Fry assumes command, doing her best to get everyone off of the planet safely, feeling guilty because she was willing to dump the human cargo and save herself when she realized the ship was on a collision course. Among Fry's fellow survivors are some Islamic pilgrims headed for New Mecca, led by the Koran-thumping Imam, a Lara Croft-wannabe archeologist-type, a bounty hunter with an itchy trigger finger named Johns, and his prisoner Riddick, a convicted murderer with surgically-enhanced night-vision. At first, the survivors are leery of having the hulking figure of a convicted murderer amongst them, but they quickly discover that Riddick is the least of their concerns.

After some looking around on the wasteland planet, the group discovers that they are not the only living creatures there. There are beings that thrive on this planet, but are hurt by sunlight so they stay in the darkness and shadows, lying in wait for their chance to greet their new crash-landed guests. These creatures live in hives and colonies deep under the planet’s crust so as not to get caught and burned by the light of perpetual day. Needless to say, the natives of the planet get their chance, for this is an action/horror film after all. Once the castaways figure out that they are on the menu for the natives of the planet that will very soon be cast into an eclipse, they begin to frantically start searching for ways off the sand soaked rock of a planet. Will they make it in time? Will they actually trust a killer and escape artist who can see and hunt in the dark to help them all escape to safety instead of just saving his own flesh? Is Riddick kidding when he says, “When the lights go out, this psycho family of ours will tear itself apart.”? You’ll just have to watch this eerily dark action thriller to find out.

In my opinion, this movie has a decent amount of action in it, accompanied by horror and suspense, all of which keep the viewer on the edge of their seat throughout. Riddick’s character even throws in a bit of interesting psychology as does any thriller and horror movie- it makes you think and ask questions to yourself or those around you. Do you dare find out what awaits you in the dark? If you do, I highly recommend this sci-fi/horror popcorn flick that goes to prove 'what you can't see can hurt you'.

9

We’ve all seen and heard of a hundred different movies that fit the mold of man versus machine and a resulting apocalypse that ravages and destroys the world as we know it, but leaves behind a few stragglers on either side. Unfortunately, 9 isn’t much different than your run of the mill apocalypse movie. In this world, nine burlap sack puppets built in the form of man, just like the ones you may all know about in the game Little Big Planet on the Playstation, awake to a world destroyed by first a war between humans with the help of their machines, and then a second war between the remaining humans and machines. Each of the little living burlap sack puppets is imbued with a soul and given a number based on their sequential creation. Number 1 is an old leader with outdated ideas on how to live, 2 is a tinkerer of sorts that loves asking questions, 3 and 4 are archivists that record as mush history and information as they can, 5 is always afraid of everything, 6 is a sort of artistic soothsayer, 7 is heroic and courageous, 8 is big and strong and serves as 1’s bodyguard, and finally there is 9 who seems to be the perfect culmination of all the other 8s’ traits and is also the most advanced in his crafting.

These nine small creatures are more or less divided amongst themselves into two sides. Side one is led by 1 who believes in always hiding and waiting for their enemy the machines to die out. This side houses numbers 1, 8, 6, 2, and 5. This is also the side that 9 meets first and dislikes their theories on how to live from square one. On the other side we have 3, 4, and 7 who fight for their day of salvation. 9 seems to like this side’s ideologies much better. All throughout the movie, all nine sack puppets are fighting amongst themselves and against the newly awakened leader of the machine army simply referred to as “The Machine”. Numbers 1 and 9 do not see eye to eye at all and have several conflicts as the leaders of the opposing sides, but team up when the chips are down to try and rid the world of the catastrophic power of The Machine forever. This is a rather sad movie seeing as how less than half of the heroes make it out alive.

Through this film’s few twists and turns, it doesn’t surprise the modern day movie-goer much, and so many audience members turned it down. Although the graphics and animation were fairly awesome, I am afraid that I would have to agree with the average modern day citizen- this is more of a B kind of a movie with a similar storyline to dozens of other futuristic movies about the aftermath of the end of the world. If you have some spare time some day and want something with a storyline that’s been done again and again but in a little different way this time through, give 9 a shot, but don’t worry about rushing to the video store any time soon just for it.

Rear Window

In modern day society, we have so very many nosy and peeking people trying to see what everyone else is doing. These peepers are can be the sort who sit up in their rooms just bored to tears, when they see something or someone outside or across the street or next door and wonder what their neighbor could be up to. Being human as we are, we are all always curious about things, but there are just some things that it is better to keep your straying eyes out of, for who knows what neighbors might do if they found out that you were spying into their personal business?

Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is an amazing classic film created way back in the day. Some may even say that it’s the father of the film Disturbia, which is more or less a remake of Rear Window. This film is about a young man named L.B. Jefferies who is stuck up in his apartment with nothing to entertain himself or hold his attention for too long, so he starts nosing into his neighbors’ lives. He gets to know all of the people that live around him without them knowing that he is observing them through their open windows. Jefferies brings his girlfriend Lisa and nurse Stella in on his new hobby of people watching after noticing some odd goings on one night in one of his neighbor’s homes. Jefferies believes that he witnessed a murder, a husband killing his own wife in the building across the way! Oh sure, he calls a detective who explains away why Jefferies saw his seemingly innocent neighbor carrying out trunks and briefcases in the middle of the night and cleaning knives and saws, even packing his own luggage, looking as though he is ready to move out of his home and quick. All throughout this time however, the husband’s wife is nowhere to be found.

Jefferies believes that it is up to him and his friends to solve what really happened that night, but being unable to leave his apartment himself due to an injury, the girls go sneaking around the neighbor’s house trying to gather evidence to prove their theories. Unfortunately, Lisa gets caught intruding in the neighbor’s home and the only way that Jefferies thinks of to save her is to call the police. While talking to the policemen, the neighbor spies Jefferies through the window, and later makes an attempt to take Jefferies life for our young hero has seen too much. Luckily, the young man is saved in the knick of time when his friends rush in and apprehend the fiend.

Although it worked out that the boy was a hero for helping to bring down a murderer, the lesson to be learned here is that people shouldn’t be so nosy just because they have nothing better to do. Spying on people is often a good and quick way to land you in hot water, or in the hands of a crazy man. This film teaches us to busy ourselves with our own lives, and don’t meddle in the lives of others if it’s none of our business.

The Dark Knight

For this review, I chose to watch the film The Dark Knight. This movie is of course about the infamous comic book hero that we all know and love named Batman. In this movie of the world renowned caped crusader, he is up against an man who doesn’t want money or anything logical no, his only desire is to watch the world burn, a mentality that our hero does not understand in the beginning It is because of this that the Batman has trouble combating the Joker and his plans. The Dark Knight really changes throughout the course of this film, he must seek new depths to his methods to finding and taking down criminals, must come to understand a new kind of villain- one without rules, with a truly mad but effective logic to his designs, and who really will go to the limits even if only for a laugh.

One of the only friends of the Dark Knight in this tale is referred to as the White Knight of Gotham named Harvey Dent. All of the citizens of Gotham think Dent is the new hero, one without a mask, one who the people can see in the bright of day and who can kelp to clean up the corrupted streets of Gotham while his dark counterpart sleeps off the night before. In his weaker hours, Harvey has a fetish with the game of chance, always leaving many more important decisions and situations up to the flip of his coin, and as the coin goes soaring through the air flipping over again an again just like night and day, just as the Dark and White Knights change shifts. Unfortunately, it is on Batman’s side of the coin in which the most stunning and awful events take place, which is why everyone, even Harvey, turns on the hero of the night.

The themes to the movie are to prove a point, and they are obvious ones because they are demonstrated and talked about all throughout the film. The themes are about unbiased, unprejudiced chance in a world that isn’t fair, even the best can fall and can be broken into so many pieces that they no longer resemble any part of the person that they once made up, but people can also be so incredibly noble that they can become the exact opposite of what they truly stand for if need be. If something needs to happen, if it deserves to happen, then a hero will come forth and make it so.

This film, I thought was very inspiring and thought provoking amongst its madness and corruption that it portrays so very well. Practically every major character in this film flips their roles when compared to their old time comic book look-alikes. The Batman must feign to be something he isn’t, Dent must do what he thinks makes the world fair, the Joker stays pretty much true to his character but the role is enacted so well by Mr. Ledger that he deserves to stand out whether his character changes or not, and the newly appointed Commissioner Gordon has to do whatever it takes to make sure that the people of Gothom City keep up their hope and believe that one day they will have their salvation.

Review For Popular Audience

I have recently seen the movie Final Fantasy Advent Children, and I must say that I absolutely love it. The film was created by the same people that created the sequel to the movie, which was in fact a game called Final Fantasy 7 and they made the CGI even better in the movie than it was in the game, if you are able to believe that. Besides the graphics, the music was awesome, the voiceovers were done exceptionally well, and the story of the movie kept inline with the story from the original game.

This movie graphics were created almost flawlessly through CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) technology. This is the same kind of technology used to bring many characters in the famous Pirates of the Caribbean series and the newly released Avatar. The creators of this film are not movie creators by trade, they were just a bunch of game creators that wanted to create something cool, and so this is what they came up with. Now, being game creators, they didn’t have access to regular actors or huge million dollar budgets like regular film developers do, but they knew all about and created amazing CGI graphics in their games, so why not use the same technology to create the sequel film to the original game.

This decision also helped to keep the quality and elaborate characters, sets, and even plot completely in line with the original game instead of creating something new and more than likely flawed due to the necessity of using real actors and costumes and sets and whatnot. The characters are even more detailed and better created than they were in the game, boasting much higher resolution, richer colors, deeper shadows, and even more fluid motion. When the characters jump, flip, bend and go to battle, their clothing and drapery moves in perfect proportions and completely in sync, so much so that it’s almost poetic.

The voice-over combined with the cinematic graphics was even excellent. Although the English animations weren’t 100% perfect, they were still pretty darn close. The regular Japanese version is flawless in its animation with the voice-over however. The facial animations are also very well done to the point where you can almost feel what the characters are feeling, almost as though they were standing right next to you, having a conversation with someone there beside you.

The music was composed by famous Japanese artists plus one of our own, namely Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance, who helped to write the ending theme entitled “Safe and Sound” and Gerard wrote the song “Anxious Heart” which replaced one of the original tracks for the new remake of the movie. The melodies and music in this movie really help to draw you in and set the atmosphere for everything from the rock n’ roll packed fight scenes to the more orchestral and classical pianistic tones in intimate and calm scenes, for after all nothing sets a mood and fulfill an experience like music can.

I must admit, this is truly an animated classic in the same league of power and majesty as The Lion King and the newly born yet already world renowned Avatar. Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children really shows the ingenuity of its time with its amazing artistic styles and world famous story.

Bride of Frankenstein

I have recently reviewed the Bride of Frankenstein movie made way back in 1935. It is an old style black and white movie that was very advanced for its time. This piece was masterfully created as a work of art in the film industry. It has a lot of emotion put in to it, centered around horror, suspense, surprise and even fear. This story is a sequel to the original Frankenstein, in which the classic mad scientist creates a monster from dead human tissue, reanimating it through the dark and twisted realm of science and technology, and the scientist initially thinking himself a god. You can tell that the writer of this film is probably of a good, deep Christian background due to the fact that one of the main points of the story is that no man should meddle in things he does not truly belong in or understand, such as giving life to a dead.

The Bride of Frankenstein however, was also a work of art as much as its predecessor was, but it is also a parody or comedy if you will and meant to not only tell the rest of the story, but to mock the very reality in which it was created. It is steeped in its loveless humor for modern day society, such as poking its homosexuality at the audience and peers of James Whale, whom was in fact a homosexual himself. In this story, the good doctor Henry is reunited with his fiancé, only to have her ripped away from his grasp again and again by his old mentor, Dr. Pretorius. Pretorius tempts and demands Henry Frankenstein’s assistance in creating a mate for the still living creature that Henry created in the first film. At first Henry refuses, but with a little coercing, he agrees to play his part in the creation of a mate for his first creature, but when Dr. Pretorius comes coming calling for him, Henry refuses once more and so Pretorius has his new “friend” the monster capture Henry’s bride and whisk her away to be held captive until the two doctors have finished their work and guarantee Henry’s cooperation. All throughout the film, the Monster only seeks a friend, a companion or sorts, but every one that he finds, either runs off in fear him, or is torn from him by an angry mob seeking to destroy the monster. This is meant to illustrate society’s immediate notion to destroy what it cannot harness or understand, not thinking or caring how the ones involved will be affected by their ignorant hatred.

All-in-all, this film was very well done for the day and age in which it was created, and can still be enjoyed by modern day classic film lovers. The story was well written, the acting was adequate, the backgrounds and scenes were all nicely put together, and all of the special effects bells and whistles were decent. Although this film was meant as a sort of parody/horror film, today we would consider it more of a parody/comedy with some primitive horror elements thrown in because it is simply too outdated as a horror film in comparison to the hacker-slasher horror movies we find in abundance in modern day.