Movie Mon. - It All Goes South

Wasn't in much of a movie-watching mood this week, and the following two mediocre films I watched might be part of the reason why.

The Last Winter: Disappointing eco-horror flick about a group of oil workers whose arctic expedition goes south when one by one the crew start to die of mysterious circumstances. A top-notch cast of solid, if not necessarily marquee-name, actors (Ron Perlman, James LeGros, Kevin Corigan, Connie Britton) helped keep this one afloat for a while, but by the end it was just a muddled mess with an ambiguous ending that is almost guaranteed to split people into "love it/hate it" camps; I say "almost" because I neither loved nor hated it, but was really left with an "eh, who cares?" attitude.

Botched: Over-the-top horror-comedy about a thief for hire (Stephen Dorff) whose latest job in Russian goes south when he and an elevator-full of passengers (including the annoying British addiction sponsor from Dexter sporting a faux-Russian accent) get stranded on a hidden 13th floor of a building owned by homicidal descendants of Ivan the Terrible. I picked this one up because it apparently won a whole bunch of awards at some film festivals, but wow, was this not my cup of tea at all; the film's sense of humor didn't mesh with mine hardly at all. Oh, sure I chuckled at a couple of things --the main killer's odd ballet dance as he was chasing a victim down the halls was sufficiently odd-ball to amuse me, as was the bumbling security guard's "alpha male" speeches -- but all in all, I just wanted the movie to end so I could get on with my life, and that's never a good sign.