“Gothika” is never sure if it wants to be a supernatural thriller, a psychological thriller or a murder mystery, and that’s pretty difficult to discern through the clichés and obvious plot devices given to the audience non-stop. Every bit of scenery is murky, dim, dull, bland, and dreary to create the effect of suspense, and while scenery matters with setting a mood in horror films, it’s also up to the director to set it, and here it seems the director relies only on scenery, scenery that is so predictable and hard to swallow. There’s the dark and stormy night (check), the cheap shocks that will presumably keep the audience more annoyed than actually scared (check), the very loud score intent on keep the audience in suspense when nothing follows (check!), especially in one really stupid moment where Berry’s character etches her way down a dark basement, and as she opens the door, the score goes slowly up higher! And higher! And higher! Until–! Nothing.
Tag Archives: Drama
Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru) (2000)
I’d heard about “Battle Royale” in the underground film circuit, and this Japanese thriller has become an instant cult classic amidst the masses of true movie fans. Violent, disturbing, and controversial, this is one hard to find movie, but it’s worth it once you find it. You can’t get it at a chain store. Adapted from the novel written by Koushon Takami, In the not too distant future, kids basically rule over the adults, terrorizing them and banding together to rebel against them. One day on a field trip, a group of students, oblivious to what is happening, awake in a classroom, when their teacher who quit after being cut by one of them appears. Confused and frightened, they’re surrounded by armed guards and soldiers and discover they’re being trapped in a game. The game is really a secret law that has 42 students captured and collared and they’re pitted against one another on an island where they must kill one another in three days.
American Splendor (2003)
“American Splendor” is the biographical film of cult underground critically acclaimed writer Harvey Pekar, a man whose become synonymous with underground comics. What “American Splendor” does is rare, rather than adhering the normal formulas of the biopic with dramatic tones, the obligatory villains and hardships, it’s approached rather with a realistic combination of comedy, drama, animation, and documentary style with interviews along with Pekar’s usual loving sense of self-loathing. “American Splendor” is a film rich with human overtones, and human characters that aren’t appealing to the eye, but are completely realistic.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
“The Butterfly Effect” is a rather ludicrous hybrid of two very good movies “Donnie Darko”, and “Frequency” and what results is the bastard child of the two. It’s a pretty dumb and utterly pretentious jumbled drama that is never sure what it’s trying to say, or what in fact it means. Is it a tragedy? Drama? Thriller? Science Fiction? Fractured Romance? Does the butterfly effect really apply to this, or is that theory just used as a plot device for this? I was never really sure, but what I was sure of is that this definitely is none of the more complex dimensions.
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
“The Magdalene Sisters” takes place on 1964, the heels of the women’s liberation front where young women realized their sexuality and did so through protest, standing up for their rights, and burning their bras showing they wouldn’t be constricted sexually through man made products, yet here we visit a village in Ireland where women’s liberation hasn’t quite caught up. If anything “The Magdalene Sisters”, a well acted and very well directed film, analyzes the constriction of women in Ireland and how utterly one – dimensional their values were. It’s more of a film centered completely around ignorance and not only about religious ignorance, but social ignorance, and paranoia that the slightest thing will destroy the religious function and faith.
Runaway Jury (2003)
“Runaway Jury” is the type of film that makes me happy to be such a hardcore movie fan, beautiful cast, well acted, well directed, and taut, this is a prime courtroom thriller. Based on the book by John Grisham whose name has become synonymous with courtroom dramas, rather than focusing solely on the drama in the courtroom, we also focus on the people behind the curtain, the defense and the prosecution who pick jurors one by one and decide which would be most suitable. The difference in this process are the two people behind it; Wendell Rohr and Rankin Fitch played by heavyweights Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, Rohr (Hoffman) is a fiercely moral lawyer who plays by the rules along with his newest assistant Lawrence Green (Jeremy Piven) who can read body language and voice tones, he gets his job by convincing Rohr he’ll be needed during this trial if he intends on winning and defeating Fitch.
Sylvia (2003)
While Paltrow does manage to give an inspired performance that shows effort, the problem with “Sylvia” is it romanticizes someone who was obviously stricken with a horrible mental disability. As always, poets and singers who manage to commit suicide are portrayed as people who have done something elegant, a deed such as suicide is portrayed here with such a fantastic and dreamy nature and never does it focus on the sheer extreme results such as misery. This manages to romanticize suicide and takes a woman who had obviously a mental illness and makes her seem as if suicide was a grand gesture to end her misery when in fact it was just sad.