Movie Mon - Craftiness

Haven't really watched a whole lot recently but here are a few brief reviews.

Friday the 13th: Franchise reboot that features a slightly craftier* version of everyone's favorite hockey-mask-clad slasher. Enjoyable enough slasher film; definitely a step above several of the previous installments in the series -- I'm looking at you New Beginning and Jason Takes Manhattan! -- but not one I foresee becoming a "classic" in its own right. Still, it will hold a special place in my heart for the deaths of the couple out water-skiing; both of their demises had Li'l Random and me about to fall out of our seats laughing. Doubt that was the director's intent, but oh well.

Blindness: Allegory about a nameless country which is overrun by an inexplicable plague of blindness, with the focus on several of the first people infected who are quarantined in an abandoned asylum which becomes packed to the gills as the epidemic spreads. Did not like this one at all; I can understand why it got good marks from critics, since it was very effective in achieving the effects it wanted to achieve. But while I can appreciate what they were going for with the film, the crumbling of society and its resultant thievery, violence, and rape were not things I enjoyed watching. While I may be a fan of the dark and twisty, I prefer my dark and twistiness to be either more subtle or more humorous; the stark brutality of Blindness made it a tough pill to swallow. Again, can appreciate the craftsmanship of the film, but doesn't mean I ever want to see it again.

Choke: Adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel about a sex addict (Sam Rockwell) who scams people in restaurants by pretending to choke to death in order to raise money to pay for his delusional mother (Anjelica Huston)'s hospital fees. I had expected to like this one, what with its dark and twisty nature, but somehow the different plot elements never fully gelled for me. My favorite moments all revolved around Huston's character, both in her delusional present, and even moreso in the flashbacks to her younger days and questionable parenting skills.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley: Ho-hum horror flick about a girl who transfers to a new school after her mother goes crazy and tries to kill her, only to soon start hearing voices and seeing things as well. Really not worth the time it would take to critique it; I say give it a pass.

Sex Drive: Teensploitation film about a geeky virgin who goes on a quest to hook up with a girl he met online. Even as teen sex comedies go, this one was pretty bland; there were some amusing bits here and there (the bizarrely over-confident Randy and Andy, James Marsden as the violent older brother) but over all, I was pretty bored throughout most of it.




*Crafty as in sneaky intelligence, and not crafty as in "Oh, look at the nice macrame owl I made in Arts & Crafts." An understandable mistake, since Camp Crystal Lake is known for its macrame owls, ranks right up there with their high body count.