"We Need To Talk About Kevin" is Effective, Lacks Delivery

My movie reviews aren't traditional, in that I don't waste time explaining what the movie's about. I'll cut to the chase:

That one crazy woman from Constantine gives birth to a psychopathic kid. The entire movie cuts between her life before and after he massacres the student body of the high school he's enrolled at.

I'm not going to spoil any of the movie for you either. What I said above can be inferred from the first ten to twenty minutes of the film. The kid's a big asshole and the fat guy from Step Brothers (to clarify, John C. Riley...Will Ferrel's no spring chicken) performs surprisingly well, given his secondary role as "Dad who means well but is generally oblivious."

The child acting in the film is well-done and convincing, as opposed to in-for instance-The Omen, where the little brat doesn't say or do shit, making it easy as hell to play. The characters are convincing, although somewhat dumb, a term which here means, "in any competent household, this kid would have been submitted for psych evaluation probably around age eleven or twelve." Constantine Woman is believable in the role, due largely to her physical appearance (tall, emaciated women always strike me as very emotionally patient and accepting, and Mom here gives her crazy son too many chances to do right, although in this case it's mostly the fault of the father that all the shenanigans went unnoticed).

The film is well-paced (mostly), and disturbing, but for the wrong reasons. Namely, instead of leaving the viewer with an unsettling feeling, I found myself skipping forward through one or two scenes in particular that only really had one way of ending (surprise surprise, I was right), and spent too much time trying to pull me in. You know that part when a guy's trying to pick a chick up in romantic comedies, and he brings out some long-winded, unnecessarily impressive and ultimately ineffective speech about some dumb shit like his job at the stamp factory or how many genital diseases he's fought off with sheer power of will, and the woman at the other end says, "You had me at 'Hello'"? That's this movie. I was drawn in and involved early on, so the shock-value style that the movie had at times for that purpose weren't worth sitting through.

The other main qualm I had with the film as a whole was its climax. It lacked. That's not to say that there wasn't a decent ending, because there was (until the last twenty seconds, but I'll touch on that shortly), it just didn't deliver. The director drew out a couple scenes that he should have kept short, and left crucial elements out of some sections that would have made them more powerful. Also, the ending is lackluster, in the sense that everything that had happened is supposed to be justified in a big, pivotal realization, which in the face of the rest of the film, doesn't stand up.

This movie is, in its entirety, very half and half. Great atmosphere, acting, good pacing, poor delivery.
If your movie's about a school shooting, I damn sure want to see one, asshole.

5/10

Old Movies Suck.

I feel like I shouldn't have to say that.

I recently skimmed an article - I say skimmed because there's no part of me willing to put the time and/or effort into more than perusing this subject matter - discussing the restoration amd re-release of Hammer Films "Classic movies" on Blu-Ray. Seems that standard and HD DVD are so yesterday that film companies are once again wasting money trying to adapt grainy, scratched film relics, with stains reminiscent of faecal waste put through a wood chipper and sprayed onto 32mm film strips, for the minuscule population who gives more than three and a half fucks about Blu-Ray while simultaneously giving just as many to flicks that have been bad since 1984.

I'm going to give you five names.
1. Grace Kelly
2. Marlene Dietrich
3. James Stewart
4. Kim Novak
5. Doris Day

Be honest with yourself, how many of them have you heard of? Two, three maybe? Now, how many of their movies have you seen? That's what I thought. I'm trying to illustrate two points here:

Point 1. Whether or not you're a memorable actor/actress has little to do with the movies you're in. It has to do with your performance on and off the screen, and your stay value. In other words, everyone knows who Boris Karloff is, and less than half of you have seen the original Frankenstein. I haven't even seen it, because I don't give a fuck. Everyone knows who Audrey Hepburn is, because nobody stops talking about how nice of a woman she was. If she was a bitch, people would say "She was good in movies" and then probably flip off her ghost for being so crusty.

Point 2. Films don't need to be adapted for young audiences, because if someone is genuinely interested in either the history or the performances in said films, they're going to watch them regardless of the video quality. Collections of Alfred Hitchcock originals sell by the boatload, none of which are adapted or remastered. Real buffs don't care.

"People want to see these movies because they want to see innovation at work. Hammer Films revolutionized the horror movie industry." See point 2.

"But regular DVD players won't be available forever, and Blu-Ray is the new wave in video technology." Okay, sure, and by the time that happens, every single one of these movies will be public domain and available online, or more importantly, in a library anywhere.

This move is about money and nothing else. I'm not going to be a liberal piss hole and whine, moan and period all about exploitation of cinema or consumers, companies sucking money out of the layman, etc. My larger point is, if people are more like me, without a Blu-Ray player because Sony is the devil incarnate, or legitimate vintage film enthusiasts, or (once again like me) understand that old movies are like old books and old people, meant to be locked away to collect dust and taken out only when you really want to hear a bunch of farfetched, poor quality, hazy stories, the whole adaptation concept is a waste of time and money.

It's also probably the reason why movies like "Hobo With a Shotgun" exist; nobody's paying any god damn attention.

My Effed Up Dream

So I'm back in high school (I'm 20. This is unnecessary and humiliating).

I suppose I was picking up classes in order to qualify better for something in University (that has been on my mind lately; I do almost nothing for a good majority of the week in terms of financial or educational success so maybe I should fill that time with a scholastic return). Adam (friend of mine) is there. We're in a Hospitality class - let me be clear now that I would never take hospitality. The last thing I want to know is how to:

A. serve people in a shitty restaurant as a Maitre' d, taking all the flack from uptight, perturbed customers because their steak isn't exactly 140.38 degrees centigrade.

B. Entertain guests at any gathering whatsoever, because I hate people and the less acquainted and polite I am, the better.

Needless to say I don't really belong in this class. The teacher (who looks suspiciously like the father from That 70's show...which is another thing I hate; Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have a "relationship" like a midget has a "height issue") hands us menus, and we go off into a big restaurant-style room.

There is an asian man here who promptly begins to urinate down his leg, making small stains on the floor as he rushes for the bathroom in embarrassment. We all laugh, but I go to check because apparently in my dreams, I'm a humanitarian. Must be in backwards-land or something. The fellow tells me not to tell anyone that he peed himself; redundant since everyone saw it anyway. But I told him I wouldn't, and tried unsuccessfully to find a stall for myself (they all had piss in them...I might have a problem).

There is a long space here with nothing I can recall. I'm in the hallway of my old school, standing around, waiting for something that probably never came because isn't that always how dreams work. There are several people from my classes strewn about, some for whom I don't give a fuck or a fist. I might have climbed stairs at some point.

We return to the Hospitality room as before. This is after my typical "Can't find my fucking class" routine I go through almost every time I have a dream about high school. It's no longer a bother, because it happens so frequently, so I suppose my dream-self doesn't give his last shit about being punctual anymore. Minutes of me running around the various floors and castle windows (that are native to this sequence and only appear here). The teacher has provided us with a box on wheels, full of smaller boxes that are full of magic tricks. The room is white carpet; we're supposed to be giving some sort of demonstration to other students. The boxes are black with purple designs, stars if I remember correctly. I immediately spill every box onto the floor, and trip over them several times because, naturally, they're invisible unless they're face-up. The professor, in some sort of saving-face moment, ribs me about being unfit for the class; for some reason, it gets to me pretty effectively.

Then I announce that I'm dropping the course. I had thought about it earlier, but I was worried that I had no other classes with Adam, and it has been a while since I've seen him so I wouldn't want to spoil it. Somehow I go from a standing position to on my side, trying to crawl at the door. The teacher, sensing that I'm vexed, proceeds to defame me; he accuses me of "flinging shit" in the bathroom earlier in the day (no doubt because I went in there to check on that asian man) and pistol-whipping another student, which is absurd to me because I don't even have a gun license. He then says "Exactly"; implying that I, in perfect Gang-star fashion, have procured this firearm illegally, as all black people do. This is so frustrating that I grab his pant leg and attempt to knock him over, unsuccessfully.

Then I woke up.

Interpretation is welcome.