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Reviews
Lost Souls (2000)
Would not change a single thing
I'm serious about this 10/10. I think this is one of the very few films that achieves exactly what it set out to achieve from the first shot to the last. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if it's yours, it's Godfather level of well done.
Maya Larkin (Ryder), a schizophrenic catholic orphan, hunts for the antichrist with visions and numerology. Peter Kelson (Chaplin) is an amoral writer of psychopath biographies. The film follows both of them as viewpoint characters focusing on the interaction between the two, but this is not a romance.
What you get instead is a loving detailed reality that you can live in for the duration of the film. If like me you're a person who can watch The Others a dozen times, or any of these films F/X, DOA, Skeleton Key, Oculus, it's more for me "reality tourism" than about specific plot development.
I disagree with some of the other reviews here, on Ryder's performance. I think this is her best film. I think I get a very good feel for who Maya is, she's just not a sane normal person. This is not a typical cinematic role or cast of characters. It doesn't go as far as They Live or Eyes Wide Shut, and the scriptural references are light, (if you want something heavier, also 12 Monkeys is good) but for the sake of being there, this film puts me there. It's not better than the other films mentioned here, but it's there's not a way I would change it to make it better.
I'm trying to help the reader of this review determine if it's their sort of thing, without giving spoilers, so I'm just trying to think what else you might like besides Winona Ryder that would cause you to watch this. Gothika is another. (I quite enjoyed that film, but it's not Lost Souls)
I feel what Lost Souls has over some of these other films is that often the need to hammer down plot points can weaken the art of simply being there. If you want a supernatural mystery that would make a nice casefile for Ed and Lorraine Warren, for the pure art of being there, you'll enjoy this one. If you hated every film I just alluded to, this one's probably not for you.
Get Out (2017)
Skeleton Key and Peele
Welcome to a world where you really can judge people by the color of their skin. In case you forget which race is superior, a character will be sure to inform you, and the odd thing? they all agree. Moving past this, the film has other issues.
I missed the "hype" just saw this on a recommendation. It's a well written adaptation of a less well known film Skeleton Key (2005) Unlike the original, Get Out completely fails to be scary. Part of it is it fails to place us on the protagonist side. Washington is plenty sympathetic, but he lacks that feeling of powerlessness that would make it horror.
Second, it fails to even make it to Noir, when the film's director is clearly on the protagonists side. Instead of Murphy's Law ruling the twists, things tend to happen which are conventient for Washington to notice everything going on and be able to do something about it.
I don't really have a third, there are just little writing things that bugged me all the way through, subtle details, traits of his character, profession etc fail to come into the fold as dominant story arc drivers and are more window dressing.
That said, the film has some genuinely creepy moments, and outside of some extraneous out-of-setting scenes with characters who have no narrative impact, it's mostly believable. There's some definite Guess Who's Coming to Stepfordness to it all, but there's not enough here to forgive it for fanning the flames of racism. It's an entertaining watch if you have nothing else to see and don't mind being ranted at about the Peele's feelings of racial superiority.
Now You See Me 2 (2016)
Now You Don't
Burdened with exposition and backstory, NYSM2 really doesn't understand its characters. 1's Radical free agents are now second rung govt. flunkies with no free will of their own, waiting by the phone to take orders. Like Bond in Skyfall.
It's pure treason. 1's heroes who wanted to disappear, who hack, and steal with robinhood charm become 2's lackeys, chasing down "evil" people who want to disappear, to hack, steal, like Bond movies, have more charm than the heroes.
If you watch 2 in isolation without seeing 1, you might watch an entertaining film of magic tricks, even if it is kind of Ice Age minus Scrat.
If you've seen 1, and rewatching it doesn't work for you, try 2, but keep the remote handy. You might need to fast forward.
The 5 stars are for cgi-enhanced magic tricks, even when story pointless, and it was fun to watch even if incredibly painful at times.
La casa del fin de los tiempos (2013)
Not bucking the trend, just clearing the air
Okay, I'm no part Venezuelan.
It's a good film. American audiences, take it for what it is, a low budget film from a small film industry. Yes, it has weakpoints, but also strengths.
Pros: innovative plot twists, well filmed. Cons: Slow starter, overdramatizing music gives away some surprises, a few connections are contrived. Overall: A good twist on a psychological pensive ghost story.
Who might like this? It's a little old school, like Gaslight, with some of the Spanish style, like Del Toro's Devil's Backbone. A touch of The Others, not as polished, but if you like those films, and are looking for something else, this would be a good one to watch.
ps.
To reviewers & commenters : Don't knock countries. Americans love European & Mexican movies. We're not latinophobes. Key? Subtlety. It's much more powerful if a twist happens and we almost miss it, and then wham, it's there. Just like some day noticing "oh, huh, they're from Venezuela."
This needed saying because of the number of comments on the topic comments and reviews. I know funding is hard to come by for major projects in Venezuela, so kudos, keep it up. I look forward to future results.
Oculus (2013)
Ouch!
If you want to be truly terrified by a truly flawlessly made film, then this is your movie. Don't read any spoilers. Everything in it was terrific and terrifying, even films in its own sub-genre pale by comparison. Far exceeded expectations. Don't expect to sleep tonight.
I see I'm required to include ten lines of text. What else can I say. A woman who is convinced that a mirror is haunted and a man who is convinced she is delusional attempt to prove to one another what really happened during the traumatic events of their childhood.
I don't think that contains any spoilers, that's pretty much a summary of the premise. This movie is bone chilling. Kudos also to our Amy Pond, (Karen Gillan) and her child counterpart Annalise Basso, as well as BSG's Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) for a smaller but truly impressive performance.
I fear for anyone who randomly chooses this film for "family night"
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)
Read the book
Six, an appropriate score for a B action movie with no significance, plot or character development. I'm sorry if you liked Finnick Odair, because don't expect to see much of him, or Peeta Mellark, but the major problem with this movie is that it's telling the opposite story of the one the book told. All the foreshadowing is removed and there are newly invented scenes that directly contradict the subtext of the book and lead me to suspect that a radical change of ending at the end of movie two.
It's not Mockingjay, the book, made into a movie. It's like Coin made a propo of Mockingjay from her point of view and released it as a campaign ad for her upcoming presidential run.
Mockingjay wasn't a completely original story, it was Watership Down, but it was a wonderful end to the series, and just the sort of triple play that was needed. Now they've taken that away from me and handed me a star wars in its place. That's like taking away my swordfish steak and giving me a McFillet.
It's a chopped assortment of action scenes, with all of the darkness removed, and absurd scenes added that generated actual mocking laughter from the theater audience when I saw it on the second night. That's never a good sign.
Still, if you're just seeing it as a movie, it's not terrible, it's not like inception or some of the garbage they have at top of IMDb's list; meaning, it's not blatantly bad, it's just blatantly not mockingjay. Maybe if they called it mockingmockingjay, or maybe if it was a youtube fan video attempt it wouldn't have annoyed me so much.
There are a couple of well done scenes taken from the book that actually appear in the movie. I think there are actually five scenes in this movie that are actually in the book, and maybe two of them are the same as the book. What's more difficult to forgive is the creation of scenes that aren't in the book to add in when there is clearly so much that was hacked out.
So, if you didn't read the book, you'll be mildly annoyed, if you did read the book, just brace yourself with really low expectations and then you can still enjoy it.