A man is running in the park one snowy day, and collapses under a bridge dying from a heart attack, years later, still grieving, Anna attempts to move on with her life and is confronted by a little boy who says he’s her dead husband Sean. Is he really her re-incarnated lover, or just a young boy conning this grieving woman. For the whole time I sat, watching this, I kept thinking to myself “The makers are trying to convince us of something”. What? I’m not entirely sure, but through the arduous time I watched “Birth”, it seemed like from the beginning to the climax, that everyone involved in this movie were attempting to convince us of something, but the closest verdict I’ve come to, was that they were trying to dissuade us in to thinking this was a good movie.
Tag Archives: Drama
War of the Worlds (2005)
Spielberg has always shy away from making films involving aliens that were actually aggressive. His was a role to make the aliens more human friendly, and kind, so it was quite a surprise when he signed on to direct this remake which featured prominently aggressive aliens exterminating the human race. As much I truly wanted to hate this remake–and I really did–I couldn’t deny that this was one hell of a film, that only Spielberg could have mustered up. It’s another remake, sure, but I actually managed to like it a lot.
Noel (2004)
In the spirit of “Love Actually” director Chazz Palminteri creates a holiday themed story that presents the basic formula of that film where we see a range of characters going about their own private turmoil’s and obstacles in life, whom all occasionally cross paths in the most ironic ways, as fate would have it. It’s pretty hard to find malice against a well-intentioned film like “Noel” that lacks any manipulation or melodrama and really has a sense of genuine emotions. It’s a low-key, and understandably obscure holiday film with a decent cast that has your basic Capra-esque heartfelt nuance of warmth, and love, and lack of love. It’s often very sad without being sappy, it’s fun without being meandering, and it’s truly entertaining in a way only a holiday film should.
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Perhaps I was expecting nothing, because in the end I was truly surprised that “The Skeleton Key” ended up becoming a truly inspired and genuinely creepy supernatural thriller that deserves a chance. Director Iain Softley along with writer Ehren Kruger of past supernatural exploits, creates a rather spooky and all around morbid thriller surround the Louisiana bayous, and its undercoating of hoodoo and religious fanaticism. Much a mixture of “The Serpent and The Rainbow” and “Rosemary’s Baby”, the main character, a heroine of rather innocent background discovers she’s in a web of conspiracy and potentially evil deeds that will decide her life if she’s not careful.
Fat Albert (2004)
I used to love “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”. As a child I spent many days watching the Cosby Kids from their junkyard solve problems while bringing us along for the fun that ensued. It was really no surprise to me when I discovered that the adaptation was being filmed, especially with the successes of popular shows being processed in to bad movies like “Scooby-Doo”, and “Rocky and Bullwinkle”. Very few were hits, and many were utter misses, because instead of giving us a truly good story that works, they were just made to cash in on the popularity and take our money. Luckily, I never paid for any of them. “Fat Albert”–though not as awful as claimed repeatedly–is still a terrible film and was a bit of a match to sit through.
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)
I recently re-watched the slowly growing classic “Ginger Snaps” and while the re-watch quality hasn’t been kind to it, it’s still a damn good werewolf film. What “Ginger Snaps 2” does is offer a much different approach to the story which may or may not bode well with audiences. You can say whatever you want about this sequel, but in the end you can’t call it repetitive or prosaic. It’s a completely different sort of concept and narrative yet manages to extend the story from the first which is what a sequel should be. One of my many ever recurring complaints about film is that sequels always tend to repeat the first film instead of extend or add on to the original story told, and “Ginger Snaps 2” doesn’t fall prey to that trap. In the end, it’s ultimately not better than the first film, or even the sub-par final film, but it still ends up being an engrossing piece of werewolf fodder that adds to the mythos and does away with the werewolf/period allegory and presents a more upfront premise.
Darkness (2002)
It’s weird how the biggest houses with the most windows at the top of a hill on the countryside always manage to somehow be the darkest. I live in a large apartment with many windows and it’s often too bright, but somehow the setting here is dark and gloomy even in a beautiful house such as the one in “Darkness”. “Darkness” is unequivocally one of the most embarrassingly derivative “horror” films I’ve seen in years. It’s a film that borrows and yanks elements from other better horror movies just to tell the nonsensical and utterly pointless story we see here. You could guess the story before I even spelled it out for you. A small family, relocating to a job in Spain where seemingly no one speaks the native language, moves in to a great house haunted by ghosts. Cue an unnecessarily large back story, many obligatory plot twists, and surprisingly bad acting from the great cast featured.