[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.3:Making some Noise about Silent House

{Silent House‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Based on Gustavo Hernández’s independent horror film, Casa de Muda, this week’s movie is a chilling one.

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Plot Summary

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), her father (Adam Trese), and her uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) have returned to their old vacation house to prepare it for sale. But, if working in a big, old house isn’t bad enough, there are stories of people who have been squatting in this vacation home while Sarah and her family have been away.

What’s more, Sarah hears things as she works her way through sorting old possessions. Her father and her uncle say it’s just an old house, but Sarah’s ears aren’t the only thing deceiving her when she begins to see people who, on second glance, appear not to be there at all.

When faced with strange stories, noises only you seem to hear, and things that only you can see what could be worse than a Silent House?

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The Good

The overlooked indie horror movie of 2012, Silent House, has quite a bit to offer.

Much like The Screaming Skull it shows its mastery of atmosphere early on, but rather than pumping up the tension to the point where our patience bursts and we wind up with something comedic rather than horrific, Silent House knows how to moderate its tension. In that regard, this movie is to The Screaming Skull as Edison‘s DC electrical system is to Tesla‘s AC system.

Helping to maintain this atmosphere is ace camera work by Igor Martinovic. His handling of angles and long shots is not only effective but convincing when it comes to showing us what perspective we’re seeing everything through. Much of the movie is shot so that Sarah is the focus, and paired with the single camera approach, this is a dynamite movie for cinematography. In fact, it should definitely be looked at as a reference for communicating perspective through film.

{Throughout most of the movie the camera focuses on Sarah; putting Peter in front of her fantastically expresses his protective role.}

Of course, the bread and butter of any horror movie couldn’t be moderated by cinematography alone. The movie’s script and direction are also great at stringing out just enough frights throughout the movie to release excess tension and to make way for more.

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The Bad

However. Silent House‘s strengths are met by its major flaws.

As an experiment in what I’d consider first person film, we aren’t given the same information that we’d get if we had different character perspectives or even a script that allowed for omniscient (or near omniscient) story telling/filmography. Because we lack the sort of information that could only be delivered explicitly if we were privy to another character’s perspective, we’re given an ending that is a shock, but not in an expected way.

At the risk of spoiling the ending – here I go – rather than a final moment that sends shivers up and down your spine (as Paranormal Activity did for me), we get something softer, more akin to the ending of Shutter Island, or Inception even.

It’s not a bad ending in and of itself, but it’s not what’s expected from a horror movie, especially one that tries so hard to combine jump scares with more psychological frights. Ultimately, however, the movie’s attempt to balance these two makes it much more lopsided.

It also doesn’t help that one of the actors simply has a presence that suggests his/her involvement in some unsavoury activities.

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Judgment

Silent House is a sleek, and considerable horror/thriller.

It makes effective use of camera work to tell its story and to create atmosphere.

It withholds a little too much information, and its ending suggests that the next scene could be more interesting than everything that came before it.

This movie’s a strange beast because it’s really quite a strange movie when considered. Much like Shutter Island it plays with perspectives, and there are twists throughout, but the thing is that despite its admirable attempt to be a story told mostly in the first person, what’s lost as a result leaves us to piece far too much together.

This challenge that Silent House presents is a welcome one, and can make for an engaging movie experience, but it’s not engaging if you’re not willing to do some speculating throughout your watching of it.

Nonetheless, it still offers some chilling scares and an ending that, as far as soft, conversation-generating endings go, is better than Inception‘s. And for that, as well as Igor Martinovic’s masterful work behind the movie’s single camera, this is one to save, I say, Freya.

So swoop low and lift this one from the muck and mire – it’s a movie to be seen and to be talked about for what it does right as much as what it loses in trying to do too much.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #22!

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.2: Is Leprechaun in the Hood any Good?

{Leprechaun in the Hood‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Welcome to Part Two of Shocktober – a look into the litanous Leprechaun series. Specifically, as requested, this week’s review is a foray into the fifth movie in the Leprechaun franchise: Leprechaun in the Hood.

Interestingly enough, after four previous movies, this one’s picked up the label of “comedy” as well as “horror,” so let’s just see how this freestyle film fares.

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Plot Summary

It’s the 1970s and the man who will soon be known as “Mack Daddy” O’Nassas (Ice T) strikes it rich when he finds a stash of gold and an ugly statue of a leprechaun. He learns the secret of the two, and uses a magic flute found in the leprechaun’s (Warwick Davis) gold to drive himself to fame and fortune.

Flash forward 20 years. The rap trio of Postmaster P. (Anthony Montgomery), Stray Bullet (Rashaan Nall), and Butch (Red Grant), are trying to get on the hip hop scene but just aren’t that great. Down on their luck, and looking for some quick promotion to earn money they need to repair their equipment, they turn to rap mogul Mack Daddy.

But Mack Daddy’s help will come at a cost: the trio will have to change their entire image! The trio’s de facto leader Postmaster P. objects, and they’re thrown out. Having no other alternative, the three plan to steal the medallion they saw hanging on a grotesque leprechaun statue in Mack Daddy’s office.

Their heist is a success, but when they remove the medallion, the leprechaun comes back to life and begins hunting down everyone the trio’s pawned his gold to. On top of that, Mack Daddy starts after them as well to get back the flute that they stole – the very source of his fame and fortune.

Will the trio figure out how to use the flute to cause their own meteoric rise to stardom? Will Mack Daddy catch up with them and bust a cap in each of their asses? Or will the leprechaun succeed in stealing back his gold as he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake?

The only thing that’s sure is that nothing can be good when there’s a Leprechaun in the Hood!

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The Good

First off, because this is a Leprechaun movie, it’s an Irish exploitation movie to some degree. Add in the hood, and you get a modern blackspoitation film. Take them both together, and we get a heaping helping of rhyming lines. And any form of entertainment with rhyming couplets is as good as a cellar full of fine wines.

Additionally, we’re treated to turns of phrase like this one:

{“Kinda like Robin Hood, ‘stead we gonna be robbin’ in the hood.”}

Further, we get to see Ice T show off his acting chops. For example, we see him reacting to his friend’s death:

We also see him scrounging around his afro for another weapon:

And, we see him (for much of the movie) acting pretty full of himself:

It’s not an Oscar-worthy performance, but it ups the comedy and campiness of the movie. These things are important ingredients for its potency because they really help to carry it along. After all, being the fifth in the series, it can’t really be expected to be as terrifying as the last four movies. So, instead it goes for the base comedy so often found in B-movies. As a result, this movie’s like a bag of popcorn: you take one handful and then by the time you actually check to see how much is left in the bag, you find it empty.

Beyond the movie’s B-qualities, it has some surprisingly dark moments. These are both major plot points, but definitely work well both to bolster the movie’s characters and to buttress its comedy and campiness by adding some variety.

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The Bad

However, it can also be said that the movie’s darker moments are there to make up for its lack of a “horror” element in general.

Leprechaun in the Hood follows the formula of a slasher or serial killer movie well enough (one person or entity is out to kill a group of people or an individual), but we’re told right off the bat why the leprechaun goes after who he goes after. Because we know that whoever has the leprechaun’s gold is going to buy the farm, the movie musters very little tension.

It doesn’t help matters that the movie’s titular villain isn’t very menacing either. He’s definitely brutal in the pursuit of those who have his gold, but otherwise he’s as comedic a character as Ice T.

The other issue with the movie is that it doesn’t really answer many of the questions it raises. Questions like: how did Mack Daddy know enough about the flute to only be interested in it when he first comes across the leprechaun’s gold? Why is the flute’s power selective in certain scenes? And how does the leprechaun manage to escape and hypnotize someone at the end?

Why all of these things happen is clear (convenience, convenience, and to leave it open for the next one), but the “how” is just as important because without that the movie loses its depth.

Explaining how the leprechaun’s magic (and magic in general in the movie work) would add such depth, and help to build more tension as audiences tried to figure out the leprechaun’s weak point for themselves based on what we’re told. Instead, we’re told nothing, and the movie becomes just a bit of light entertainment.

However, the worst part of the film is that the leprechaun isn’t even really the main focus – instead, it’s “The Hood.” Since both things are in the title, both should share the spotlight, but the leprechaun is used as little more than a plot device.

He spouts off some dope rhyming couplets, makes cheerful threats, and then follows through with them. But he’s really just the impetus for events, he never really gets into them. For example, the whole conflict between the rap trio and Mack Daddy barely involves him at all – he’s just a third party that sometimes interferes with either side’s plan.

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Judgment

Leprechaun in the Hood is an light romp that mixes comedy, camp, and exploitation style film into one entertaining blend. But if you’re looking for substance, you’ve got to go with an earlier Leprechaun movie, or an older horror film. This one’s as substantial as blown smoke.

That said though, Leprechaun in the Hood is well-paced, and it does offer some rather surprisng twists near the end.

So, Freya, dust this one off, and lift it up (but be sure to set it along the lower seats of Filmhalla).

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #21!

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[Freya-dæg] The (Good) Samaritan

{The Samaritan‘s movie poster, found on IMDb.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) has just finished his 25 years in the joint and he’s eager to start fresh. He meets with his parole officer, gets himself a job – and reconnects with his old partner’s son, Ethan (Luke Kirby).

But Foley’s chance meeting with Ethan almost causes his undoing, as it introduces the fiery Iris (Ruth Negga) into his life and threatens to pull Foley back into the very world that he wants so dearly to escape.

But meeting Iris quickly becomes a great thing for Foley. The two become more and more intertwined as a couple. In fact they become so close that there are no secrets between them. Except, as Foley finds out from Ethan, one. It’s a secret that could tear Foley and Iris apart and twist the knife that knowing the secret himself has thrust into Foley’s heart.

Ethan uses this secret as leverage to bring Foley in for one more big score. But will Foley go along with it? Will he be able to keep Iris in the dark or will she be able to handle the terrible truth? Most importantly, even if forced once more into the world that he vowed to leave behind, can Foley emerge once more as The Samaritan?

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The Good

For a Canadian film, The Samaritan is a slick picture that weaves a wondrous atmosphere around its viewer. From the dank streets of Toronto to a moody, Peter-Gabriel-esque sound track, this movie is one that offers more than just an escape, it offers a rewarding journey through the darkest of places.

Samuel L. Jackson gives a much more muted performance than in most of his other movies, as his is a character who’s more reflective than violent. But this works well with the other elements of the movie and really helps to sustain its atmosphere. Also, Luke Kirby plays a perfect slime ball, while Ruth Negga does well as an addled lost woman.

{Foley, confronted by Ethan’s questions of why he killed his father.}

But slick production values and strong casting aside, this movie pulls out one of the few trumps in the noir genre: the Oldboy card.

The twist that Oldboy deploys in its narrative is more elaborately delivered, but the pared down version found in The Samaritan is incredibly effective. What’s more, it also takes some extra time to give greater depth to the entanglement between characters. Further, this device is such a rarity in Western cinema that it comes as a welcome surprise.

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The Bad

At the same time, The Samaritan is not without its problems.

The pacing of Foley and Iris’ relationship is too fast, for starters. Not that a guy who’s just gotten out of prison wouldn’t fall for a girl like Iris as quickly as he does, but rather there’s very little chemistry between them until Foley takes the initiative.

This makes sense, since Foley plays as the world-weary and in-control ex-con all the way through, while Iris is very much caught up in the world of the pimp’s fist: opening to dispense coke, and closing to dole out cruel slavery. This dynamic later becomes something more, as Foley strives to help Iris get herself straightened out, but their bumpy start can’t be ignored.

The movie’s initiating moment, the one that sets up Ethan’s and Foley’s motivation for the whole of the movie, is also questionable.

In this moment, Foley is faced with the choice of seeing his best friend and partner being killed before being killed himself, or killing that friend, taking the fall, and having to live through prison. The way that this moment is introduced and then developed over the course of the movie does nothing to show us why Foley chose to live rather than die a Roman death.

After all, when he comes out of prison everything has changed, everyone he meets from his old life says that what they did was “1000 years ago,” and he has no connections on the outside whatsoever. We don’t even see any reason for Foley to have killed Ethan’s father aside from his own cowardice (or, in Ethan’s words, “to save his sorry ass”).

It could be argued that this is how we’re supposed to regard Foley throughout the picture, but this doesn’t jive with his actual character as we see him. Throughout the movie he’s calm, collected, and entirely together – he knows exactly what he’s doing, how to do it, and how to keep calm while doing it. His is not the shakey hand of the coward, but the steady one of the expert.

Maybe there was some pivotal, off-camera moment in prison that turned him from craven to maven, but we don’t see it and this creates a distracting disconnect between his apparent motivation for saving himself rather than just dying with his friend. And since the moment in which Foley made this decision is what leads to the rest of the movie, the plot itself is undermined.

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Judgment

The Samaritan is a movie that very clearly explains its own lukewarm reception.

Samuel L. Jackson is famous for starring in movies that grab your attention, shake you for an hour and a half and then leave you reeling. Likewise, film noir is a genre known for characters and plots that seize your interest and sweep you around from situation to situation until things conclude in a twist of some sort. Combine these two together, and you rightfully expect a twisted thrill ride that delivers atmospheric, hard-boiled action.

However, this just isn’t the case.

The thrills are there, as are the twists and the characters, but nothing necessarily grabs and holds you. The whole movie is better described as a film that very clearly proclaims “I’m noir! …and I’ll just be right over there, okay?”

To really appreciate this movie, you need to be willing to take an active role. Not so that you can follow its complexities, but becuase the movie’s not going to do much holding for you. It’s a movie to get lost in rather than to be lost in. And that is a very refreshing change from movies in the action/noir genre that try to bludgeon their viewers with madcap sprees.

So, Freya, find this one brooding in the Field of Fallen Films, and bring it up, for it’s truly a one that deserves to be seen.

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Closing

Tomorrow, watch for Annotated Links #19, and on Sunday for a look back/look ahead entry.

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[Freya-dæg] Indecision while Meeting Evil

{Meeting Evil’s‘s movie poster, found on IMDB.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

John Felton (Luke Wilson) is a father, husband, and realtor floundering in the trough of the housing crash.

He’s lost his job, his self-respect, and his passion for living. But on his birthday he crosses paths with a strange character known simply as “Ritchie” (Samuel L. Jackson). As John’s attempts to help Ritchie lead from one thing to another John slowly realizes that something is terribly wrong – everywhere they go it seems that people are being killed.

Will the killer eventually strike out at John himself, or the family that he holds dear? Or will John eventually comprehend that in each encounter with Ritchie he’s been Meeting Evil?

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The Good

For a movie that looks like it was filmed on a steady, many mega-pixel handycam, Meeting Evil has some great cinematography and editing.

For example, after one of the murders, the body is splayed on the road and we get this transition to a convenience store where the scene’s opening shot is of a barbie doll splayed out on the floor in the same way. And later in the movie when John is being questioned by the police we see some great use of lights and shadows. And in a similar vein, near the movie’s climax there’s one shot where the shadow of the falling rain looks like blood dripping down Joni’s face.

But, the greatest thing that this movie has to offer is Samuel L. Jackson. He brings all of his chops to the table and really conveys a powerful sense of menace in so many of his scenes.

Just as he’s bald in the role, you could say that he’s been shorn of all of the ridiculous over-the-top-ness of his role as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction. He still does push things, but each foray into the depth of feeling starts from a calm and centered performance as Ritchie who seems to be as in control of his personality and himself as a martial arts master in a Hong Kong action flick.

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The Bad

Yet, at the same time, we’re never really told much about Ritchie.

Near the film’s end we get a tentative motive for his actions – but it comes from his own mouth, and one of the biggest things that we’ve learned over the course of the movie is that Ritchie is quite duplicitous. However, this opens up an important question for horror stories based on a single-entity: Is it more terrifying to know the evil that you’re encountering, or to not know it at all?

On the one hand, if you know the horror in a clinical, or unremoved way, then it can become less of a threat. That sort of technical knowledge could lead to a technical way to destroy it, or be rid of it and so the threat might be diminished.

Though if the horror was known in a more personal way, then it can seem even more insidious, since it can leave us feeling defenseless and vulnerable. After all, it sets everything on its head.

On the other hand, if you don’t know anything about the horror, it gains the element of more widespread surprise. It could come from any direction, it could come in any form, it could do anything. If your imagination has already been slapped across the flanks and sent running, then all of these possibilities give it ample springy space on which to sprint into wild frenzies.

One of the major problems with Meeting Evil is that it never really decides which way to go with its antagonist, Ritchie. It withholds a lot of information until near the end (if what he says about himself can be trusted), but there’s also a vague suggestion throughout (made quite clearly as we hear him whistling Dixie throughout the movie and over the end credits) that he is the Devil.

Yet even that possibility isn’t fully explored though there’s a great set of scenes in which it could be very clearly, but indirectly, established.

Throughout the movie we’re shown a little girl wearing red wellington boots who seems to be out walking a little dog. In our first encounter with her, she foils Ritchie’s plan to shoot John outright (which is also kind of comical, at least for Ritchie’s reaction).

Then, as we look back at the house throughout the movie the girl’s always there – like some sort of guardian angel or lurking demon. But even when she and Ritchie speak before he returns to John and Joanie’s (Leslie Bibb) house in the last act, all we get out of the interaction is that the girl’s dog sometimes bites. So, it’s possible that she’s an angel working against him, or a demon working with him, but that’s all we’re left with: a possibility.

The movie also doesn’t do quite as much as you’d expect with the fact that John is a victim of the housing crash, and living in a neighbourhood that has been almost entirely cleared out.

In one sense, placing John in this situation might just be a super context-sensitive way to establish how depressed he is and the dire straits of his family, but since it’s just there and taken as a given we don’t really gain that sense of impending doom that would make Ritchie’s confession of motive that much more believable. Though, if we really believed what he says about Joanie wanting to kill John, then the ending where they slip into bed and she just asks “everything is going to be okay, right?” before they flick off their lights would make no sense at all.

While we’re at it, the way the American family is depicted in this movie is also a little strange. John and Joni are fit and attractive people while their children are both statistics in a survey on childhood obesity. Though the movie does suggest why childhood obesity is such a problem in America right now:

{Just look at all that mac and cheese.}

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Judgment

Meeting Evil is the sort of horror movie that lends itself well to discussions of the genre, what works, what doesn’t, and what the merits are to either side of the “know the horror/don’t know the horror” debate.

In spite of the movie’s lending itself to discussion, it doesn’t really offer up what a horror needs to: a solid scare that will make your skin crawl each time a stranger knocks on your door to ask for help with their broken down car, or each time you hear someone whistling “Dixie.”

What’s more, aside from some nice editing and camera work, Luke Wilson and Samuel Jackson not only make up the lion’s share of the movie’s acting chops, they also seem to have taken up the lion’s share of the movie’s budget.

So, Freya, it is without any sort of indecision at all that I say let this one be where it lay. Keep it in mind, that we may all discuss and dissect it and its situation in the great Halls of Filmhalla, but don’t bother bringing it in from the Field of Fallen Films.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for the next “Annotated Links,” and on Sunday for a look back and a look at the week ahead.

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[Freya-dæg] A Good Reason to Swear In the Name of the King

{In the Name of the King’s‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Trouble is brewing in the land of Ehb and realm-wide unrest is afoot. Though usually unarmed and disorganized, hordes of Krug are ravishing the land, destroying villages, and, strangest of all, taking prisoners. Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard), the nephew of king Konreid (Burt Reynolds) may have a hand in these goings on. Or perhaps it is the mysterious magus Gallian (Ray Liotta), who has secretly taken the warrior/enchantress Muriella (Leelee Sobieski) as a lover who is pulling the strings.

All that’s clear is that amidst this strife the humble Farmer (Jason Statham) seeks only to live a quiet life with his wife Solana (Claire Forlani) and son Zeph (Colin Ford). This idyllic life doesn’t last, however, as it’s not long before the Krug attack Farmer’s village.

Now, with his family dispersed, and a desire to restore order to the land in his own way, Farmer sets out with Norrick (Ron Perlman) and Bastian (Will Sanderson) to set right what seems to be so very wrong.

Will this trio be just another group stricken down by powers beyond mortal control, or will they be the ones to catch the villain behind it all and cry “Stop, In the Name of the King“?

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The Good

In the Name of the King boasts some of the best acting talent in a fantasy movie (not based on any written/drawn work) of recent memory. We’ve got Jason Statham on action, Ron Perlman and John Rhys Davies (the king’s magus, Merick) on all-around-awesome, Matthew Lillard on ham, and Burt Reynolds on kingly bearing. It’s a great ensemble and quite a treat to see them all together.

Plus, Statham in the role of Farmer, gets into the thick of some pretty good action sequences, but more than anything he weilds a boomerang in this movie. A boomerang. He definitely must have stopped off at his local wind temple before the events of this movie began.

What’s more, this movie was filmed in Hollywood North – Vancouver and Victoria British Columbia, Canada. And more business for Canadian film is always good, right?

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The Bad

As you might have guessed from the lack in the previous section, this is not a movie with a lot of inherent redeeming features. So, let’s start working through where this one failed, starting with the most nit-picky and working our way toward the more general of the film’s flaws.

First and foremost, sumptuary laws, the medieval codes governing the clothing colours and styles and accessories that can be worn by different parts of society, are not observed.

Solana, Farmer’s wife, is the worst violator of these laws. Not only does she have her face done up to look like a noble woman throughout the movie, she also wears purple throughout the movie. Peasants were not allowed to wear purple under most medieval sumptuary laws since it was considered a regal colour. Therefore, either she is a noble woman and we’re never told about it, or she’s a peasant and somebody on this movie’s production team didn’t do their research.

Similarly, Statham’s use of a boomerang can slide, since for a medieval (European) setting it’s a nice exotic touch. But, his possession of a sword, even if it looks like an old and worn one, wouldn’t be permitted. Medieval law restricted the ownership of swords to the noble classes, partially as a status symbol and partially because they could be expensive to make. Now, a counter-argument could be made here, but it involves spoilers. So, skip the next paragraph if you’d rather not have this film’s plot ruined.

It turns out that Farmer is the son of the king. This makes him a noble by blood, and therefore allows him a sword. But, the thing with that is, he isn’t recognized as the king’s son until a fair bit of wrangling goes on in the last third of the movie. Up until that point he is, even in his own mind, just a peasant, and therefore has no business owning a sword.

Speaking of the classic medieval weapon: Though they make for decent spectacle, the movie’s sword fights are far too simple.

Instead of the movie showcasing sword-fighting as an art, what the movie shows is more of the hack-and-stab school of swordfighting. This style kind of works for Farmer, since, even if he’s always had his sword, he may not have ever learned how to use it, but the generals, soldiers, and wizards in the movie definitely ought to be beyond the most basic of sword strike-sword counter drills that are prominently featured in each fight.

Perhaps the action choreographer (Tony Ching Siu Tung) was going for a simpler, grittier style of sword-fighting to match the grit implied by the movie’s generous smatterings of greys and browns, but people who fight with swords for a living aren’t going to make wide, large, unnecessary swings – they’re going to make precise, small, movements that give them exactly the power, energy, and force that they need in any given situation. And, when life-long swordsmen and women make such movements, they’re going to look far more graceful than they do in this movie.

Now, it must be granted that the movie’s actors all get a fair shake at showcasing their talents in a fantasy setting, but Ron Perlman is cheated in this movie. Norrick dies near the end of the movie, but we’re not given any kind of scene centering on this. We see him get hit, we see him go down, and then we see Bastian, who’s with him, declare that he’s dead. There’s no big speech, there’re no tear-felt last words, Perlman’s Norrick just dies and then that’s it.

Also, more a matter of casting or make-up than acting, Ray Liotta’s Gallian shouldn’t be in command of planar magic, he should be too busy with a show in Vegas to learn such things. Just look at his mug:

Moving from acts, action, and acting, to the movie’s screenplay, it’s about as solid as the non-existent forest canopies that the movie’s Amazonian elves use to swing down from during a major battle sequence.

As a writer, I can understand any storyteller’s fear that loading the beginning of their story with exposition will leave audiences confused, disconnected, and disinterested. But that doesn’t mean that you should put most of this exposition (especially those things that you could use to lead to some really amazing plot and character developments) into the last 20 minutes of your movie.

Nonetheless, in In the Name of the King, it is within the last 20 minutes that we learn how the world’s magic works, that Gallian somehow made himself king over the erstwhile kingless Krug, that there are only two magi left in the world, that magi can transfer their powers to one another, and that Farmer knows what to do with a sword both in melees and in single combat.

Putting all of this up front, or at least spreading it out could have made the movie much more interesting. Instead, what carries us forward through it is the promise of action and nothing else. What’s more, we never learn anything about the world, outside of what we learn in those final 20 minutes, that relates to anything that isn’t directly involved in the story.

{Not Isengard.}

Adding insult to the injuries already inflicted on its audiences’ sense of taste, the movie rips off Lord of the Rings fairly openly. Galleon’s keep is practically Isengard, and the Krug seem to be multiplying beneath it, just as orcs do in Sauroman’s domain. Star Wars is also plagiarized, but there are already dozens of movies with protagonists whose fathers turn out to be very prominent figures.

Rather unsurprisingly, In the Name of the King also suffers from something I like to call Titan-itis. This movie malady is named for Clash of the Titans and Wrath of The Titans since both of those movies focus almost entirely on their male characters and their relationships, only bringing female characters into the story when necessary for romantic or plot reasons.

In the Name of the King does the same thing. It may even have a worse case of this illness, since Muriella, a capable, strong woman (warrior/sorceress) seems like she’s been torn right from the pages of medieval romance, but she is never actually shown doing anything in the realm of men.

And, topping off all of the movie’s shortcomings, its relative production values are likely trumped by those of the two Blind Guardian songs that play over its credits.

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Judgment

Epic fantasy movies are a difficult bunch. Other films in the genre, like Labyrinth, or The Never Ending Story, have it pretty easy since they weave their worlds carefully, draw their audiences in, and tackle some dark themes while being disguised as “kids’ stuff.”

In the Name of the King does none of that.

Even worse, In the Name of the King has almost no redeeming qualities if looked at as a whole. Its storytelling is backwards, its dialogue is awkward and out of place, its world is poorly constructed, and its characters, unfortunately, show almost no growth whatsoever.

Even after becoming king, it seems that Farmer just stays as he is. In fact, aside from Farmer’s new title, things will probably wind up as they were at the movie’s beginning since Gallian, upon delivering one of the movie’s weirdest lines to Solana (“I can feel him in you”), reveals that she is carrying another of Farmer’s children.

The movie’s action keeps it going, but if you happen to turn your brain on at all during the proceedings you’ll quickly find that doing just about anything other than watching this movie would be a better use of your time.

So Freya, avoid In the Name of the King at all costs, and let it rot where it lay. The Field of Fallen Films is truly the best place for it, though even there it may keep some of the others from fertilizing the earth beneath them.

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Closing

Check back here next week for a look at another ill-thought of fantasy movie, However, if you really want to see a good underdog fantasy movie, check out Your Highness.

Also, the blog update continues, but it doesn’t look like my regular entries will become regular again just yet. Follow me on Twitter (@the_penmin) or follow this blog via email by typing yours into the box to the right of the top of this entry to keep on top of the happenings here at A Glass Darkly!

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[Freya-dæg] All-Request August Pt. 5: This Means War

{This Means War‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

When I first saw the previews for This Means War I thought that Hollywood had finally moved onto something new in the rom-com genre. I thought that the usual romantic comedy formula had been done away with and things had begun to progress onto something more substantial. I thought, for a while, that we all had a bromedy (bromantic comedy) on our hands.

Of course, thoughts and reality aren’t always in accord, I thought as I sat down to watch this movie to round off All-Request August. Let’s see just how much my thoughts and the reality of this movie jive.

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Plot Summary

Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are two of the CIA’s top agents. They’re great in the field together, and back at the office they’re some of the most popular guys in the agency. But there’s something that can tear even the closest of friends apart, something that can be more heinous that a plot to destroy the world, more scheming than any mastermind looking to destroy the diamond market, or more maniacal than a mogul interested in assassinating the leader of the free world. A woman.

Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) is busy at being a product testing executive. Maybe a little too busy, or so her friend Trish (Chelsea Handler) thinks. So she creates a profile for Lauren on an internet dating site – and, seeing the same ad on television, so does Tuck!

But little do either of them know that this will lead to a three-way meeting that might just tear apart the two fastest of friends and put the whole of America at risk. In fact, if they can’t resolve their differences it might be more than just these two rivals in love declaring: This Means War!

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The Good

Full disclosure, I thought right. This Means War does actually do things a little bit differently from the standard modern romantic comedy. Rather than focusing on a couple who has lost their spark, this movie focuses on two friends and what happens when a woman comes between them. Plus, we do see a little bit of a bromance between Tuck and FDR.

It also sort of portrays some strong, independent women. In fact, all of what it says that’s positive can be summed up in Lauren’s friend’s advice: “Don’t choose the better guy, choose the guy that’s gonna make you the better girl.”

What’s more, throughout the movie we actually see some real character growth in FDR. He starts off as a stereotypical American alpha male, but he winds up completely changed (more or less) but for the better. In essence, we actually see him grow up over the course of the film in a lot of ways.

Speaking much more broadly, the movie’s premise of spies using their resources to woo the same girl could be interpreted as an evolution of Cyrano de Bergerac’s romantic-helper sub-plot. However, instead of both friends working together, or in any otherwise strictly co-operative way, they act on a much more individual basis.

They both rely on teams to gather information on each other and on Lauren, but they use all of this information as individuals, subjecting the raw data to their own analysis, thoughts, and figurings. In that way, then, the premise of this movie lends itself well to a celebration of the power of the individual in the digital age (if say, we replace the teams of data miners with other people who provide people with information, like say, bloggers).

Add to all of this some frenetic action sequences that are intense but easily followed and all-around well done, and you’ve got yourself an incredible movie.

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The Bad

However, in the case of This Means War you’ll get all of that and about 30 minutes more. Or rather, too much.

The movie hums along nicely through its first act and most of its second act, with nary a care. There’s some morally dark, privacy invasion issues raised by Tuck’s and FDR’s bugging Lauren’s home (while she’s in it, no less), but that sort of thing is built into the premise.

What’s harder to get past is how the movie deteriorates as the third act comes into view and then crumbles entirely by the time it ends.

Up until the penultimate climactic scene where Lauren, Tuck, and FDR are all together for the first time the movie has, though slightly awkwardly, shown character growth, suggested that it’s okay for women to be bold and independent, and made the wise-cracking friend role more of a wise-friend role. But, once the three meet all of this falls apart.

In this scene, Lauren becomes a hyperventilating mess, her friend goes back on everything she’s said up to that point by saying “I told you you shouldn’t have dated two guys at once,” after towing the exact opposite line for the first 2/3 of the movie, and Tuck and FDR are broken up without any real threat to their relationship since the movie’s big bad has been spotted and it’s still their mission to take him down. What’s more, the big bad kidnaps Lauren and Trish, as if they’re perfectly helpless damsels in the face of gritty reality – contrary to what the rest of the movie has suggested.

What makes this reversal worse is that the movie telegraphs that it’s coming almost from minute one.

The emphasis throughout the first two acts is firmly placed on the romantic stuff at the cost of the spy stuff – but the big bad that’s out to get Tuck and FDR for what they did in the opening scene is still there, lurking just out of frame and begging to have his part of the plot resolved. This fulfilment comes in a rush of high-paced action. Up to this point the action’s just been drizzled over the two agents’ comic rivalry. So it’s clear that he’s going to be the focus of act three.

Between Tuck and FDR, FDR gets far more character development. We learn about his past, a little of what motivates him at present, and we actually see him change over the course of the movie.

However, Tuck remains largely the same as a character. Only his circumstances change, since after it’s revealed that he’s a secret agent his estranged wife and kid – whom he had formerly convinced that he was a travel agent – come right back to him, no questions asked whatsoever.

And as far as Lauren’s character goes, she is portrayed as a successful career woman, but we also get glimpses of her being hung-up on an ex whom she followed to the city while they were still dating. This situation could be made to bolster her as the strong female figure that she more or less is, but at the same time this is clearly an illusion.

Without ever getting a reason for it, we’re shown that she still has a thing for this ex in spite of his being engaged and, by the very rules of the movie, thus unattainable. You could argue that this unattainability makes her want him back all the more, but since it’s not clear what made him so special in the first place Lauren’s jealousy and desire aren’t given enough motivation to take full advantage of the unattainability angle.

The negative transformation of Lauren’s friend is a little less predictable. Yet, just before she turns into the “I told you so” character that rom-coms are well known for having, we see her in a setting that’s more everyday than those in which we’ve seen her previously. This is also the scene where she gives Lauren her sage advice.

So what’s the situation? Helping her son repair a baseball mitt, while sitting on the couch in her living room and talking about how she loves her husband because he’s her own man, despite his faults. This is sweet and all, but it entirely contradicts the firebrand that we’ve seen her as before. This isn’t to say that mothers can’t simultaneously be firebrands and motherly (real people are complex, of course), but there’s no build up to this scene.

Further, it suggests something curious about marriage that the rest of the movie works towards as well.

The motherly scene with Trish, Tuck’s lack of development, FDR’s full-on development, and Lauren’s loosening up all suggest that marriage is some sort of solidifying ritual. That it somehow locks people into what’s truly best for them and that this means, to varying degrees, that growth is no longer necessary for a person.

This is why I’ve taken this away from the movie: all of its unmarried characters change gradually, we see them grow, evolve, and become something different from what they were at the movie’s beginning. Conversely, all of the characters who are married do not change (Trish’s sudden change is out of character, but not unpredictable since the movie is constantly reminding us that she’s married and has a kid).

It may not have been the movie’s intent, but since we’re given two main characters (Tuck and FDR) it’s hard to not compare the two. And any comparison shows that while unmarried the one changes, and while married the other does not change.

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Judgment

The story of two men competing for one woman is definitely nothing new.

Chaucer’s Knight tells the story of Arcite, Palamon, and Emily in the Canterbury Tales – written in the latter half of the 14th century. And Chaucer didn’t create the Knight’s Tale from pure inspiration, it was a shortened version of a story by Giovanni Boccaccio, which itself probably has even deeper historical roots.

However, This Means War does show some character growth within its love-triangle.

Yet, at the same time, it’s kind of surprising that this movie got made. Especially now, in a world of phone tapping and drone strikes, and all manner of privacy invasions being made possible by the internet and the degree to which we’re all connected to it. It would’ve made much more sense had they explicitly addressed this in the movie rather than just calling it “immoral” right before an action sequence.

The movie also promotes some of the old curious romcom axioms: marriage saves, and women who are all about their career only mellow out once they meet a man.

There is potential in This Means War, but all of that potential, like an unsatisfying story draft, gets crumpled up by the end of the second act and intricately tossed into a decorative garbage can in the third.

So, Freya, this one may yet moan and move about on the littered ground of the Field of Fallen Films, but don’t let yourself be fooled into raising it up. Ultimately, it’s just muscle memory at work.

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Closing

Next week, the blog update continues, but depending on how much of it gets done over the weekend, regular updates might just return to this blog. Regardless of my progress through that to do list, however, I’ll be giving In The Name of the King a look next Friday, and am hoping to find something hospitable within it.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Plagiarism

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
Plagiarism: A Personal History
Root Causes
Plagiarism: A Crime Against Language
Closing

{An image that’s direct and to the point. Image found on the blog Mono-live.}

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Introduction

Perusing the day’s Globe and Mail, I came across two stories that would work rather well as editorial fodder.

The first was an interview with Robin Pollock, A Torontonian currently at the Scrabble Championships in Florida. This one gave a good sense of what it took to be a champion (or just serious) Scrabble player, and would have been praised as a sign of the status of the wordsmiths among us: Not a story grand enough for the front page, but at least news-section worthy.

Delving deeper into the paper, however, I found an article that struck much deeper than anything about a board game could. I found an article in the Arts section about Fareed Zakaria and the controversy swirling around him because of the discovery of his plagiarism.

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The Article Summed Up

The article begins by relating how a blogger discovered that a large part of his recent article on gun control for Time magazine was poached from an earlier piece written by Jill Lepore and published in The New Yorker. It then goes on to show how Zakaria apologized to some of those he wronged, has been put on suspension for a month by CNN and The Washington Post, and how, despite everything swirling around him, he seems to be feeling less guilty than expected.

After relating this instance of a professional plagiarising another’s work, Houpt moves onto other cases of professionals plagiarizing before finishing with the hypothesis that journalists (and writers) are spreading themselves so thin that plagiarism is to be expected. Houpt cites Zakaria’s own hectic schedule over the past few months in his defense and also notes how many major journalists don’t always write everything that’s attributed to them.

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Plagiarism: A Personal History

All of this gives me, a young up-and-coming writer, pause – especially because of my academic background. Through all six years of my university studies plagiarism was constantly watched for, checked for, double-checked for, and avoided. All necessary citations were made as accurately as possible, and all sources that were used were included in bibliographies at the ends of papers.

Perhaps this extreme prudence came from being constantly warned about plagiarism in opening classes, in course outlines, and through email notifications. Or perhaps it came from being accused twice before.

Once it happened in elementary school where, being a little lazy and full of A’s, a large section of a resource was poached to speed a project up. Then, once more I was accused in high school where the advanced argument and style of an essay made a teacher wary, though all evidence – and most importantly, the truth – were on my side.

Of course, in the former case, being guilty, I lost marks, but in the latter case I received an ever-after unthinkable 100% (on an English paper, no less).

Whatever the case in my own history, if journalists are spreading themselves thin and basically backing themselves into corners where they have no choice but to plagiarize to keep things running smoothly, then a few things might be to blame. There are the personal things – greed, audience pressure, the feeling/desire to just do more – and the matter of writers’ pay.

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Root Causes

The first of these issues can be dealt with easily enough on paper. Though restraint is much more difficult to put into true practice. Simply put, though, if you’re a writer and seem to be trapped in a position where you have no choice but to plagiarize to meet deadlines or to keep a blog afloat, then just ask if anything can be ended. After Zakaria’s month-long suspension is over his plagiarism will probably be largely forgotten by most of the public, but this isn’t something that every writer will be able to weather.

The other issue is more systemic, and less personal, but still a major concern. Anyone can write, but to write things that show up in newspapers, that show up on reputable websites, or in magazines or books, writers need training.

To become a journalist you need to know how to write, but you also need to know about things like the impact that story can have on those involved or readers in general; you need to know about how best to approach topics and subjects; and you need to know about the ethics related to the profession. It’s no different with fiction, or with poetry. And those with all this training (or awareness/skill) should be properly paid.

To write for yourself is one thing, but to write for other people – in most cases, people you don’t even know, and may never know – is completely different. You need to know how to write so that you can interest people, you need to know how to convey emotion by showing it to a reader rather than telling him/her about it. And you need to be able to put words together in such a way that people can enjoy reading what you write for potentially long stretches.

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Plagiarism: A Crime Against Language

Setting aside all personal and industry issues, the fact that plagiarism exists makes little sense.

English is a puny language in comparison to many others (Greek and Latin come to mind – after all, on the dance floor an Ancient Roman could just say crisa rather than “shake it!”).

Yet, it’s the magic of language to take a finite set of things and put them into a near infinite set of connections and orders, even to get across the same meaning. Some people call a writer’s own way of putting words together to get across a meaning that another writer has already conveyed “style.” Maybe that’s part of the problem.

Outside of fiction and poetry, writing can sometimes drone. There are some journalists with unique voices, but more often than not the sort of thing that you’ll read in a major magazine is hardly distinguishable from anything else in the same publication. By and large non-fiction writers, fiction writers, and poets have more unique voices than your standard reporter or news writer.

In part, this monotony in journalism comes from newspapers and news shows and magazines requiring a standardized tone – often authoritative – and it can be hard to maintain that tone if everyone is writing in their own unique style. The internet has helped to give people a platform to show off their own voices in their writing, but one of the trade-offs so far is the loss of that authoritative tone in a lot of what’s posted online.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for another Annotated Links, and don’t miss Friday’s delve for the deserving in Squirm.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Book Covers or Ebook Reviews?

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
Covers, Reviews, Impressions
Undercutting and Supporting
Closing

{An interactive and tactile cover that complements the story of 1Q84 – reproducible in ebook form? Image found on Style Ledger.}

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Introduction

Although hardcopy books might seem to be disappearing from the lives of many as more and more people get ereaders, the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” still has some currency. Yet, as books make the transition from paper to screen, their covers could become a thing of the past.

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The Article Summed Up

An article from NPR Books came to my attention through a Google Alert of mine.

The article posits that, in the past, books could sell based on their covers alone, while now ebooks aren’t bought because of covers, but because word of them gets around or people read reviews.

However, Chip Kidd, an associate art director with Alfred A. Knopf, has no fear for the future of book covers. Kidd’s theory is that hardcover books, the focus of his work, have always been luxury items, and that they will endure as such in spite of publishing’s ongoing transition into the digital world.

Included with the article is a short recording that summarizes and expands upon it.

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Covers, Reviews, Impressions

As much as reviews or mentions by friends might help to make books attractive to online readers, covers can really make or break a book.

Even if you’ve seen a book a few times, a really powerful cover can grab your attention with every pass. And as much as a review can help you to make an informed decision about a book, a book that’s bought because of a review is a book bought based on reason rather than instinct. A book’s cover can evoke a more visceral response, which can lead to stronger feelings both during and after reading it.

In fact, buying a book based on it’s cover (along with a quick peek inside, perhaps) can make the experience of reading that book more enjoyable.

Instead of knowing what to expect from a writer’s style, a book’s story, or it’s characters as you might after reading a review, peeking at a book’s cover and blurb gives you a more nebulous impression of a book. The difference is like that between the impression a person whom you’re meeting for the first time but have heard about before and the impression that someone completely new to you leaves.

Maybe you don’t remember the book’s title after an initial encounter, just as you might not remember a person’s name, but if a cover and a peek at the text leave any impression at all you’ve just formed something that reading that book (once you get around to that) can cause to grow and change with more fluidity than a first impression from a review or word of mouth.

Now, the same could be argued about word of mouth or a review. These things also leave you with a first impression of a book comparable to that which you’re left with after meeting someone for the first time. But the major difference is that in this situation your first impression isn’t really your own. Instead, it’s pre-formed based on what you’ve been told or read.

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Undercutting and Supporting

Of course, it could be argued that this talk of varying extents of first impressions (first and second hand) and the effects that they have on your perceptions of a book is just splitting hairs. This is a valid argument, though, and now my English degrees might be showing through, having first impressions that are entirely your own – and therefore based on a cover rather than a review or word of mouth – will lead to a richer personal experience of the book.

But perhaps the extra personal element that covers bring to books, just as their durability, is something that makes hard-copy, hard-cover books luxury items.

In a world that’s constantly socializing the individualized experience of seeing an entrancing cover and knowing you must buy that book might just become another selling point for books that are read off of paper rather than a screen.

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Closing

Tomorrow’s Annotated Links will carry today’s literary focus forward, while Friday’s search for the salvageable in Alien Apocalypse may take a different turn. Be sure to check back here to find out!

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Annotated Links #12: Bully for Japan

1. Ruble, Cynthia. “Parent-child relationship key to solving bullying problem in Japan.” The Japan Daily Press 30 July 2012. Web. 31 July 2012.

This is a first person, opinion-based piece written as part anecdote and part observation. It identifies two major issues in Japanese culture that may make bullying ubiquitous: a willingness to accept hardships as part of life rather than try to improve them (related to the Japanese concept of “gaman”); and the unwillingness amongst adults to stand up against bullying for social reasons.

This article is of interest because it offers a cross-cultural look at bullying, and at some of the universals (unwillingness to defend oneself, fatalism) that may perpetuate bullying.

2. Gale, Bruce. “Tackling the bullying culture in Japan’s schools.” The Straits Times [found on Asia News Network] 18 July 2012. Web. 31 July 2012.

Gale analyzes bullying in Japan based on Herman Smith’s The Myth of Japanese Homogeneity. Specifically, Gale notes and includes analysis based on the three characteristics Smith writes of: “intense competition for scarce educational advantages;” “that girls are rarely victims;” and “that the victims are usually transfer students who do not yet have friends to protect them.” Gale also makes an interesting connection between bullying, gang violence, and heterogenous/multicultural societies, and another between bullying and the art style found in many manga. The article is written in a straightforward, easy to read style.

This article is of interest because of its analyses and because it offers a good sociological overview of the problem of bullying in Japan.

3. Nelson, Christopher. “To cut down on bullying, transform school culture.” MPR News 23 July 2012. Web. 31 July 2012.

A first person opinion piece based on Nelson’s experiences as a student and educator. Nelson writes that it’s important to tell bullies that bullying isn’t what’s done, and to get them to feel included after being reprimanded, not ostracised. He states that the best solution is to have a strong, school-wide sense of where the school is going and what’s important to it, yet he notes that there is no one formula for this sense and its enactment that can be universally applied. The article includes a brief summary of Nelson’s experience and credentials.

Though it isn’t about bullying in Japan, this article is included because it offers an interesting counterpoint to the otherwise ignored sense of school spirit found in Japanese schools that may also underlie bullying new/transfer students.

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Closing

Tomorrow’s editorial will be about the increasing grittiness of popular fantasy, and this Friday check the blog for a search for the good in the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space. Plan 9 currently sits at a 66% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but because of a special request, and the movie’s reputation, I’m going to relax my usual 50% cut off point.

And, of course, don’t forget to check out “Annotated Links #13” on Thursday!

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[Freya-dæg] Nicolas Cage Month Pt. 3: Trespass Review

{Trespass‘s movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

For part three of Nicolas Cage Month Trespass is on the block. A film that came out to terrible reviews peppered with a few passing grades, Trespass was pulled from American theatres after only 10 days (in which it made back less than $25 000 of its $35 million budget). Let’s see just how bad this movie is, and how Cage fares.

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Plot Summary

The Miller’s are a wealthy family, living on a secluded wealthy estate where security is tantamount. Not just because Kyle (Nicolas Cage) is a diamond trader, nor just because Sarah (Nicole Kidman) is an architect – it’s all about family.

But the Miller’s notion of family comes under threat when a group of thieves invade their home, demanding that Kyle make the most dangerous trade of all – his money for his and his family’s lives. Does he do the deal? Or do the robbers double cross him? Just who is in the right and who is in the wrong is hard to tell when everyone involved is bound to Trespass.

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The Good

Trespass offers some chilling moments that showcase the brutality of people when they’re at their most desperate. It includes some strong performances from Kidman and Cam Gigandet (Jonah). But, most importantly, it showcases Nic Cage’s specially adapted variety of acting.

{Move over, John Hodgman, there’s a new Deranged Millionaire in town.}

Cage really shows what he’s capable of in this movie. Every line of his dialogue is excellently delivered, and pitched excellently. Plus, Cage gets matched with a line that must have been written for his special brand of over-the-top acting: “That your filthy lust invited them in?”

The film is also plush with style and a smooth finish that are the result of the soundtrack, lighting, and camera work.

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The Bad

But, beneath those performances, and that style, beneath the lovely veneer, this movie is rotted through.

The core elements of any thriller, are suspense and tension. Trespass offers neither.

Aside from the home invasion element of the movie, its other focus is the strength of the Miller family.

Throughout the movie the bonds between Kyle and Sarah and them both and Avery are tested. Mostly, however, the fact that Kyle is always away on business is thrown at the audience and through the use of oddly placed flashbacks, we’re told that Sarah may just have gotten a little too involved with the security system maintenance guy, who just so happens to be Jonah.

This could make for a compelling family drama, except for the fact that there is never anything at risk.

The flashbacks show nothing that is explicit about Sarah and Jonah having an affair, except for one picture which is shown to be the result of a set up shortly after it has first been displayed.

What’s more, in an early scene Sarah wonders aloud about how much longer she’ll have to wait before she stops caring that Kyle is never around – an indication that things aren’t going well between them, but that she, up to this point, still cares enough about him to not cheat on him.

The movie’s plot is also sluggish and built on a shakey foundation. The introduction to the Millers is fine, but the thieves are simply a group of ne’er-do-wells when they first arrive on the scene. They do a good job of this, definitely, but they constantly change their story, and this not only clouds their motivation, but frustrates rather than interests.

By the time the invaders’ true reason for being there is revealed it’s hard to really care.

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Judgment

Trespass scores high on two fronts: Acting and being very aptly titled. For this movie is indeed a trespass against interesting, suspenseful storytelling.

It has a handful of moments, both legitimately good and so bad that they’re almost good, but so few moments do not a movie make.

Though it may try to talk you out of it, fly high over this one, Freya. Let it linger longer in that field of fallen films – perhaps a green shoot or wide-boughed tree will raise from where it lay.

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Closing

Next week is the last week of July, and so, the last part of Nicolas Cage month. The set of special reviews will be rounded off with a look at Seeking Justice, the story of how far a grief-stricken man will go to exact vengeance.

Plus, next week there will be a new piece of creative writing, an editorial article, and Annotated Links #10 and #11.

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