Horror-ish Recommedatios

As far as hand-held camera things go, I really enjoyed this one. The supernatural aspects of the film are on a different level than the gritty realism of the rest of the movie, and there are a couple ridiculous scenes thrown in for plot, but all in all a fun, fast ride. It's waaay better than the remake "Quaratine", which throws in a few extra scenes for plot that are waaay more ridiculous.

The weight of this film rests almost entirely on the shoulders of two twelve year old actors ... and they deliver the goods. There's nothing groundbreaking about the story but even in a story we've seen before it's a joy to spend it with these two characters, a testament to how delicately the film is directed. The cinematography is ice cold beautiful and adds to the isolation we feel from the teenage outcasts. This is a masterful production.

See this before the one with Naomi Watts.

White short shorts, no socks and deck shoes, white gloves and an ivy-league education. That's creepy. Him and his friend Bif are fucking with your life. This is one of the creepiest films I've seen.

All the pretentious talk about "making a film that sends a clear message about violence, and the audience's view and involvement with violence on film" is BULLSHIT.

If you like a good mind-fuck ... and who doesn't? ... a little kinky sex and a lot of tension, go here. Trying to figure out the layout of this apartment was mind boggling. It was supposed to be.

sitenoise at the movies: Next Door (Naboer)

Poetic. Dreamy. Surreal. There's just something about the way Sion Sono puts together a film that appeals to me. The assemblage maybe more than the film.

The infamous needle torture is more conceptually gruesome than it appears in practice at the end of this film, but the foot amputation by wire is kick-ass-sexy-hard-to-watch.

A thoroughly engaging film on the surface. The creative camera angles, the mostly gray/green color palette accentuating a sense of disease or decay, the original music and sound design, and the beauty of the actors add up to a sensuous ninety minute delight.

Charlene Choi is magnificent as the schizophrenic, sad and lonely Winnie.

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sitenoise at the movies: Diary (Mon seung)

This is one of the funniest albeit confounding movies I have seen in a long long time. This is a happy film with a happy ending. A connection is finally made between young and old, the pop group's work is done and the most suicidal of the teenagers, the one whose boyfriend surprises her by landing on her when he jumps off a building in a suicide attempt, but doesn't die until he's had time to discuss the irony of the event with her, (tell me that isn't pure comic genius).

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sitenoise at the movies: Suicide Club

Beautifully written, beautifully shot, beautifully acted, and bewildering

sitenoise at the movies: Spider Forest Review

Lotsa fun. I didn't know this was going to be a very funny movie. It's got blood and more blood, a decapitated talking head, dead bodies everywhere, and kill scenes with realistic and unnerving sound effects that will make you wince.

At times AJ Brown seemed to be channeling Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame. He even kind of looked like him in certain moments. The Signal has a surreal, over-the-top sensibility like Evil Dead, but it's humor is not derived from that. This film is witty and subtle; the humor more cerebral than gut funny. Scott Poythress turns in a wonderfully comedic performance as the 'third wheel'.

The problem with this movie is it could have been written better. The hyper-expository monologues Claudia dishes out were so unrealistic I laughed. It's a sign of a director in trouble when he has to give lines to a character that can't be delivered organically for the sake of the audience. Those plot-getting-in-the-way-of-the-story lines polluted an otherwise poetic, dream like, and metaphorical film. I would never call this film "Lynchy" ... which is just shorthand for "I don't get it but I liked it anyway ... I think. Didn't I? Did you?"

Hence, the sudden remake. El Habitante incierto was a brilliantly conceived film that could have been executed better so the director takes a mulligan. That's cool. I look forward to it and hope he does a better job explaining Vera's sudden muteness upon being shot in the plot hole we all saw coming like an eighteen wheeler.

OK. She was shot in the mouth/vocal chords and it just took a couple days without food or water to get her voice back at film's end.

I give the first half a 9, the second half a 5. Let's call it a 7 and anxiously await the do-over.