Thursday, March 31, 2011

CONTEST OVER. WE HAVE A WINNER!!

The contest is over and Kevin S. of Florida is the winner. For those that are wondering what the 7 books by Sutter Cane were in the movie. They were:


The Hobb's End Horror
The Feeding
The Whisperer Of The Dark
In The Mouth Of Madness
The Thing In The Basement
Haunter Out Of Time
The Breathing Tunnel
 
Keep an eye out for the next contest.
Thank you again to all that read this blog!

MOUTH OF MADNESS CONTEST UPDATE

   To celebrate the blog hitting 1,000 hits I'm running a contest to win a Region 1 DVD NTSC copy of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Before I get to the questions to win it. I have to put down the legal stuff to stay out of trouble. So here it goes.......
The contest is now international. All the world have fun.

Must be 18 years or older to enter. By entering you are digitally signing that you ARE 18 or older.

     Okay that boring stuff is over with.

     Now I'm not just going to give the DVD away, you have to answer one question, and the first Email I receive with the correct answers will win. The question is:

1. Name all 7 Sutter Cane novels in the movie In The Mouth Of Madness.

Send your email to:

mouthofmadnesscontest@gmail.com

Do not forget to put your real name, and your email address in the email so where I can get in contact with whoever wins so I can  get your shipping address. Your email and addresses will not be giving out to anyone.

Thank you all again reading my rants and raves about movies so far and hopefully I'll be doing this for a while.

Jason

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

SUCKER PUNCH


SUCKER PUNCH (2011)
US
Directed by Zack Snyder

CAST:
Emily Browning - Baby Doll
Abbie Cornish - Sweet Pea
Jena Malone - Rocket

PLOT:
     A young girl is institutionalized by her wicked stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her and her friends escape from the facility.

REVIEW:
     I found out a day before I saw the movie, that the movie in theaters, is not the movie director Zack Snyder wanted to put out. The movie Snyder filmed had musical numbers in it that were axed out completely as well as other scenes, some small and others big, that had bits of information in it that was meant to help the story with some of the more questionable happenings in it. For a movie this hyper stylized you need to let the director put out the movie he wants to put out.  When a studio gets it's hands on a movie it doesn't understand you get movies like the theatrical versions of  Brazil and Superman II. Two good movies, that got so much better once the true version, the director's version of the film got out. So how do I explain this movie that I know now isn't the true version of it or review it fairly knowing this.


     This film is beautiful. I had to get that out of the way as that is the only way to describe this movie. This movie is so stylized that each scene has it's own vibe. Even though most of the scenes in the movie are heavy CG based, the movie doesn't suffer from it one bit. The action pieces in this movie are so fricking cool. From a dragon chasing a WW II aircraft bomber to a showdown with robots aboard a speeding train, each of these scenes are just fun. Yet the standout set piece was the second one set during WW I where you have trench warfare against steam and clockwerk resurrected German soldiers. I was in love with everything that was going on in these fantasy world settings dealing with retrieving  five objects to help the girls with their escape. 


     But the movie is flawed though thanks to its story structure. There are scenes that don't match up with the what was going on by the way of story. Also, the main character might not actually be the main character, but a figment of another girls imagination. Or it could be said that all the other female patients that accompany Baby Doll are just figments of her mind. I'm putting it this way cause at the end of the film when a person was explaining what has happened they left out a couple of deaths, but yet mentioned one that wasn't shown instead. The story has massive plot holes that need filling that were filled in by the cut dance sequences for each of the main actresses. The story does get really dark toward the end of the movie as you truly find out how twisted one of the characters are, and what length he'll go to keep control though.


     The movie itself is amazing to watch and get lost in visually. Just the first deep fantasy sequence is enough to sell me on the movie almost as it's like watching a live action anime, it's that amazing and cool that I got goosebumps.  Yet I know that the movie could have been so much more than what was there. Yet, there is that nagging in the back of my mind telling me that the original "hard R" rated cut of the movie is the real film and what we got was a easy to digest version that has more in it than what the studios thought but cut out the explanations of those scenes. If you stay and watch the ending credits (only JeNee and I stayed through to watch them) you get to see one of the musical numbers, from Blue, interspersed with scenes from the other cut musical sequences. I'm pretty sure Blue's musical number can be placed toward the end of the movie before the escape and it added so much to the character of Blue that it's a shame it was cut. Now the wait starts for me for the home release of it with the cut 35 plus minutes put back into the film with any luck that will actually make this movie whole and not the beautiful mess that it is right now.

BEST DEATH:
     The crushing death of the lead Nazi by a giant mech.

BEST LINE:
     To reach your own paradise. Just let go.

FUN FACTS:
     The name of the movie in different countries vary from Angel Wars in Japan to Mundo Surreal in Brazil and Portugal.

     The two banners beside Scott Glenn's character as shown in the trailer are a famous couplet from 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu: "Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain." This was later made into a famous battle standard by the Japanese warlord Takeda Shingen.

     The main girls in the film were told to deadlift up to 210 pounds (95 kg) for their roles. For this Damon Caro, who worked on Snyder's 300 and Watchmen and the Bourne film series, was brought in for training, fight choreography, and stunts.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

MOUTH OF MADNESS CONTEST

     To celebrate the blog hitting 1,000 hits I'm running a contest to win a Region 1 DVD NTSC copy of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Before I get to the questions to win it. I have to put down the legal stuff to stay out of trouble. So here it goes.......

The contest is open for North American residences only. This does include Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Must be 18 years or older to enter. By entering you are digitally signing that you ARE 18 or older.

     Okay that boring stuff is over with.

     Now I'm not just going to give the DVD away, you have to answer one question, and the first Email I receive with the correct answers will win. The question is:

1. Name all 7 Sutter Cane novels in the movie.

Send your email to:

mouthofmadnesscontest@gmail.com

Do not forget to put your real name, and your email address in the email so where I can get in contact with whoever wins so I can  get your shipping address. Your email and addresses will not be giving out to anyone.

Thank you all again reading my rants and raves about movies so far and hopefully I'll be doing this for a while.

Jason

Thursday, March 24, 2011

PAUL


PAUL (2011)
UK/US
Directed by Greg Mottola

CAST:
Simon Pegg - Greame Willy
Nick Frost - Clive Gollings
Seth Rogen- Paul (voice)

PLOT:
     Two British comic-book geeks traveling across the U.S. encounter an alien outside Area 51.

REVIEW:
   

     I must say I'm surprised. I said in a earlier review that Seth Rogen doesn't understand that being excited doesn't mean yelling. Well, he proved me wrong in Paul. He actually is learning how to act from what I can tell in this movie. Even though it's just his voice, you can tell he put emotions into his role which have been missing from his other films.  Plus, he's really likable in his role as Paul as he plays it more laid back and with a wisdom I haven't seen in any of his previous roles.


     Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are always good together as they play so well off of each other, that no matter what they're in I'd probably watch it. If you've seen Shaun Of The Dead or Hot Fuzz that should be enough to tell you about them in this. Jason Bateman is fun to watch as the no nonsense Agent Zoil who is always one step behind the protagonists almost the whole movie as no matter what he's outsmarted at every turn. Kristen Wigg's Ruth Buggs as well is fun to watch as the religious nut who gets her eyes open in more ways than one thanks to Paul, who happens to have a indulging love for cussing, including some I've never heard put together before, but was good for a laugh as well. Yet the film could have done more with the religious sub-plot they started with her. Here's a warning though, if you're really religious stay away.


       I will admit that the first 15 minutes of this movie had me kinda scared due to that it just moved very slowly setting up Frost and Pegg's characters as well as their run-in with rednecks, which the whole scene just seemed a little more forced than what is usual in their movies. Thankfully it picks up after Paul is introduced and doesn't slow down really after that. I would like to have seen more of Paul past, as he says himself in the movie that a lot of the pop culture from the 80's came from him. There's one scene in particular that had me laugh and remember my childhood at the same time as Paul is talking to a famous person (yes, that is his actual voice you are hearing) while sitting in a undisclosed warehouse filled with crates that stretches for what seems like miles. It's scenes like this that are pure gold in this movie, and there are plenty of them. I won't go into those scenes cause I feel if I do it would ruin the surprises that the movie holds.


     The best way I could really describe this film is it's a love letter to 80's movies. There are so many cool parts that come out of nowhere that you can't help but to laugh with what happens on screen. While it's been said that the movie is raunchy, the fact is it's not as bad as what was being said about it. While some of the movie is predictable, it doesn't tarnish the film in any way. What the movie has though is a heart and plenty of it. While Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz is a send up of movies more than anything else, this feels like a "Thank you" to past filmmakers.  If anyone fell in love with the movies from the 80's, you should go and see Paul as it's fun and enjoyable.

BEST DEATH:
     Sigourney Weaver's compressing close encounter of the third kind!

BEST LINE:
     See. I told you you'd recognize it when you saw it!

FUN FACTS:
     Seth Rogen had to get help from Andy Serkis on how to work with a motion capture suit.

     Due to scheduling conflicts though, Joe Lo Truglio,  who also plays O'Reilly in the film, took on the part. He studied Rogen extensively in order to impersonate his voice, performed on his knees to capture Paul's physical presence and even improvised in character as Paul.

     The movie was written by both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS


IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
US
Directed by John Carpenter

CAST:
Sam Neill - John Trent
Julie Carmen - Linda Styles
Jurgen Prochnow - Sutter Cane

PLOT:
     Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate horror writer Sutter Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End. The fact that this town is a fictional creation from one of Cane's novels is only the beginning of Trent's problems....

REVIEW:
     I remember the first time I watched In The Mouth Of Madness. It was 1996 and a Friday night. My friend, Kevin Smith (not the director), called and asked what was going on. "Nothing" I said. Then he suggested that he bring over a movie to watch and asked if I had seen In The Mouth Of Madness. "No" I responded. He then got really excited and said I have to watch it. After two hours the movie was over and my mind was blown by the how awesome it was. Since then the movie has staid in my 10 best horror movies I've seen. And as the namesake of this blog I decided to write a review for it for when the site gets 1,000 hits. Well, guess what. 1,000 has been hit so here's the review!


     I mentioned in a earlier review that I love the works of H. P. Lovecraft and try to see any film dealing with Mythos. The reason why is this movie. It starts out like most of Lovecraft's work with a lone survivor, usually insane from what they had just experience, going into what happened. This movie does just that as the story is told as a flashback. During this time we are introduced to Sam Neill's John Trent, who can actually be called the most sane person in the movie as his character is the one that questions every action and tries to explain the unexplainable. The first words he utters after he's dragged into an insane asylum, and kicking a orderly in the nuts, are "I'm sorry about the balls! It was a lucky shot, that's all!" after which he yells that he's not insane.I was hooked from that point on. His character looks like he's seen Hell and survived. A lot of actors can deliver lines that can be believed, but it's if the actors can show emotion with the eyes that separates the decent actors from the great ones. Even though Sam Neill is criminally overlooked as a actor, he truly is one of the great character actors. If it wasn't for him this movie wouldn't have succeeded.


      While it is a staple for most modern horror movies to show everything up front, and even in the trailer for movies, this one follows more of the classic style of not showing everything which in turn leaves a considerable amount of the true horrific details in the viewers mind, which is usually worse than what can ever be shown on screen. Carpenter knows this and uses it to great affect. That's not to say the movie doesn't have it's monsters, quite the opposite in fact.   It's just that when a monster is shown you never truly get a good view of it as it's either kept in the dark or is shown in close up. The deaths in the movie are handled in the same way as you actually see very few people die on screen while the other deaths are handled off screen and you hear about them through radio and TV broadcasts. A good example is Mrs. Pickman after her transformation in the basement. You never actually see the full creature, you only know she is far from human and is chopping up her husband with a axe.


     Carpenter has always known what he wants out of a movie. Even when he doesn't make the best movie, he still makes the movie he wants. Yet with In The Mouth Of Madness he goes beyond shock horror and makes a more psychological horror. He almost reaches the level he hit with The Thing in 1982 and to me gets close to going above what made that movie great. He twists what is considered sane and spins it on it's head while still playing with the idea of what is insanity. To this day In The Mouth Of Madness is truest in spirit to what Lovecraft was writing plus having the spirit of his work at it's heart, as well as being one of my favorite movies of all time.


BEST DEATH:
     Sutter Cane's rise above human confines by ripping his world apart.

BEST LINE:
     Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more.


FUN FACTS:
     The small town is named "Hobb's End", an in-joke reference to the subway station where the alien ship is excavated in the movie Five Million Years To Earth/ Quatermass and The Pit (1967).

     After Sutter Cane says "Did I ever tell you my favorite color is blue?" It is realized that throughout the entire movie, whenever an actor has a close up, their eyes are blue, proving Sutter Cane's power.

      The dozens of monsters featured towards the end of the film were a combination of men in suits, animatronics and a full-sized "wall" of creatures. It took over thirty people to operate the monsters.

     This is the third film in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy". In order they are:
     The Thing (1982)
     Prince Of Darkness (1987)
     In The Mouth Of Madness (1994)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES


BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (2011)
US
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

CAST:
Aaron Eckhart - SSgt. Michael Nantz
Michelle Rodriguez - TSgt. Elena Santos
Bridget Moynahan - Michele

PLOT:
     A Marine platoon faces off against an alien invasion in Los Angeles.

REVIEW:
       I love alien invasion movies. Well, let me rephrase that, I love the idea of alien invasion movies. It's just that most don't live up to what they promise. A good example of this is ID4. Amazing first hour, then it just fizzles and shits on the audience. Same can be said for last years Skyline. I know it's sad, but it's true. How hard can it be to make at least a decent alien invasion movie? Well here comes Battle: Los Angeles promising us action and aliens trying to take over our planet. So what did I think of it?



     I'm so happy the cast actually believed in what they were making as without that this movie would have fallen flat. Aaron Eckhart is an overlooked actor who is just plain fun to watch as SSgt. Nantz. At one point in the movie he could have just acted all sweet toward a kid, but instead he stayed true to his character only softening up a tad. The man just owned this movie from the start to end. Michelle Rodriguez, on the other hand, could have been used a bit better though. She was brought in and then just became one of the regular soldiers after the Marines teased her about her training and knowledge.It should be noted that the movie wasn't really character driven. You're shown quickly what each one of the main characters are like outside of his military life and then that's it for a back story. The one really useless character in the story was Bridget Moynahan's Michele who also gave the worst line in the whole movie. You'll know the line when you watch the movie. (Though it was JeNee's favorite line)



     Unlike a lot of war movies this one tries to forgo the exposition of war room meetings and place the viewer in the action as soon as possible. While the movie doesn't do anything to reinvent the war film, it does what is known very well. It also manages to hit most cliches also that come with the territory. While the movie could have done without some of the handheld shaky cam shots which made it hard to keep with the action, thankfully though they didn't last long. While there were of plenty of CG shots in the movie, Jonathan Liebesman decided to go with more practical effects whenever possible, except at the end where it would have been nearly impossible to do without CG. This brought a level of reality to the movie, as well as the bio-mechanical alien design, which makes a certain degree of sense as if your race is a traveling colonization force with advanced technology.



     I went into the movie thinking it would be a invasion movie and I got a kick ass war movie with aliens instead. The action was intense throughout most of the movie with enough space to take a breath before the next action sequence upped the stakes for our characters. While there was some cheesy dialogue sprinkled throughout the movie, with one groan inducing one, they were quickly forgotten for what was going on up on the screen as it made the audience I was in, which was filled with spring breakers, shut up for two hours. This is what a "B" movie should be and it's the best action movie with aliens I've seen since District 9 two years ago.


BEST DEATH:
     Vehicular homicide by way of plasma blast.

BEST LINE:
    That was some serious John Wayne shit.

FUN FACTS:
     Almost the whole movie was shot in Louisiana due to tax breaks.

     Legal action was contemplated by Sony Pictures when it found out that the Brothers Strause were working on their own film, Skyline (my review for Skyline is here) ,while working on the special effects for Battle: Los Angeles.

    The film is inspired by the real life incident known as the Battle of Los Angeles, during World War II. On the night of 24-25 February 1942, unidentified aircraft were allegedly spotted in the airspace above Los Angeles.

RED RIDING HOOD


RED RIDING HOOD (2011)
US
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

CAST:
Amanda Seyfried - Valerie
Gary Oldman - Father Solomon
Billy Burke - Cesaire

PLOT:
     Valerie falls for an orphaned woodcutter Peter, much to her family's displeasure. About to run away together, they find out that her sister is killed by a werewolf breaking the truce the village has had with it for years.

REVIEW:
      Hardwicke who left the Twilight series due to the fact that she wanted more money and time wound up making the exact same type of movie: a soulless love story with hollow main characters and wooden acting. She stuck to the same formulaic approach as she took in those crapfests. Female lead with overly breathy and dry narrative. It almost felt like the same movie with different actors. I mention Twilight as this film gives me the same feeling for some odd reason. Yet when I went into Red Riding Hood, I went in with no expectations. Hell, it has Gary Oldman in it and was produced by Leonardo DiCaprio so it can't be all bad. Can it?


     Well, it was mostly bad. While some movies know they're bad, other movies try to be something more serious and deep. Red Riding Hood definitely tried to hard to be something that it clearly wasn't. You could open a fish market with the amount of obvious red herrings they were throwing around. They were discredited just as fast, and I mean right after they were revealed, sometimes even 10 seconds after. The story was just misfire after misfire. There were plot holes all the way through that even the characters saw and said nothing about. Now I don't mind love stories in movies, sometimes it actually helps. Just don't make it contrived. The main character goes back and forth so often in who she likes it actually made my head hurt the next day. As for the incestuous story line in the movie, yes that is a spoiler, it was just weird and pushed this movie into the next level of wrongness.

And what the hell was up with the ever expanding red cloak?



Now I have to talk about the acting in this movie as there were two sets of acting schools at work. In one corner you had the older actors who knew what type of movie they were making and just decided to start chewing scenery to see if they could escape the mess they got themselves into. The chief person in this was Gary Oldman. The man just showed up and ruled the screen as a holy roller executioner Father Solomon. Even when he was spewing his past history with werewolves you paid attention. Even when he was begging for his life he never groveled as most actors would, and gave this scene some respect that would have been lost otherwise. Michael Hogan in the short screen time he had was chewing through the movie as well until he got slammed by the werewolf like it was a freight train. For a movie that had so many great actors in it, it wastes all most every single one of them. Virginia Madsen is wasted as a mother that longs for her lost love. Michael Shanks who has charisma to spare is like a ghost in his role. As for the two main actors, if you can call them that, there was no chemistry between Amanda Seyfried's Valerie and Shiloh Fernandez's Peter at all. Fernandez's acting is so wooden it was laughable at best and painful the rest of time. As for Seyfried, I was wondering how her eyes didn't dry out as they were bug eyed throughout the whole movie.



Not everything was terrible with this movie, just most of it. The set design was actually quite brilliant. It felt like a fairy tale setting. The thorn forest in the movie was a wonderful idea as well. The art direction should be mentioned just for the shot of Valerie kneeling in snow while wearing her red riding hood. This shot almost felt out of place.

I still can not recommend this movie in the slightest to anyone. It could have just as easily been called Twilight Of The Wolves (thank you JeNee).

BEST DEATH:
     Dr. Daniel Jackson's weight loss by  guttural dilation.

LINE THAT MAKES YOU SCRATCH YOUR HEAD IN CONFUSION:
      They killed again.....the wolf!

FUN FACTS:
     The film was originally titled The Girl with the Red Riding Hood.

     Catherine Hardwicke directed the first Twilight movie.

      The films main writer worked as an assistant to Frank Darabont while he was filming The Green Mile. (What happened there?)

Friday, March 11, 2011

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU


THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011)
US
Directed by George Nolfi

CAST:
Matt Damon - David Norris
Emily Blunt - Elise Sallas
Anthony Mackie - Harry Mitchell

PLOT:
     A smooth-talking congressman future is thrown in doubt by uncontrollable events and the arrival of a mysterious woman in his life whom he was only supposed to meet once.

REVIEW:
     Hollywood has a love/hate relationship with Philip K. Dick. They love the story ideas and premise that he offers in his stories. Yet, they hate that most of the time his films under-perform. His stories always have a undercurrent that goes through every story that he tries to get across. While most of his works deal with a matter of perception, that there is more there than can be seen, it's the undercurrent of all these stories that peaks through. Films based on his writings almost always have this undercurrent hidden within from Blade Runner to Impostor.


     The undercurrent I'm talking about is what is it to be human. To make mistakes. To love. To feel.  This is an important question in The Adjustment Bureau as Matt Damon's David Norris is completely human in the movie as he makes mistake after mistake. Yet, he is always giving a second chance by choice, the other theme in this movie and the true one at the end, and the choices he makes after each chance. For someone that is so sure about being with someone, he gives up way to easily on her after giving a choice. Yet after each time he knows he messed up and yearns for the chance to correct the mistakes he made. Most movies I've seen Damon in he's always seemed a little detached, somewhat unlikable. Not so in this movie, which is a blessing as to me as he's playing his most human role, flawed and fallible.


     While the trailer makes it seem like Terence Stamp is a villain in this movie, he isn't, or that there's some major evil invasion going on as this also couldn't be further from the truth. The Adjustment Bureau of the movie is truly left up to the viewer to decide what they are. Even though enough hints are giving to point it toward that they are angels without saying they are. It's explained to a certain point they're supposed to keep people on a set path after what humanity has done to itself in the past 100 years, it's cold logic in a way, as this is clarified by Stamp's character, despite this I still don't like the effect it brings up that we have no free will. This alludes to the true antagonist in the film. Predetermined Fate. Can we actually break from a path set for us, to fight what we believe to be right no matter what. Thankfully the movie shows that even they, the Bureau aren't without flaw as they do not have complete free will and have problems improvising which makes you question what they do and why.


     Anyone going into the film expecting the movie to be full of action will be terribly disappointed as this is not that type of movie. Instead the movie makes you think. It has an imagination that works on the viewer and makes them question reality and how much of a choice their lives have had so far. Also anyone going into this film who thinks everything will be explained will be upset as you do, as I mentioned before, have to think.  If there was one  thing I didn't like in this movie it would be that the end seemed to easy and viewer friendly, to relaxed and moderate. Despite this one flaw,  I was captivated by this film and the questions it asked, as well as the superb acting. This is one love story I truly got into and can easily suggest to everyone that can think for themselves. 

BEST DEATH:
     None. This isn't that type of movie.

BEST LINE:
     We're more like case officers.

FUN FACTS:
     The Adjustment Bureau is the 10th Phillip K Dick story to be made into a theatrical film.

     The visual plan for the film was to keep the camerawork smooth using a dolly or crane and have controlled formal shots when the Adjustment Bureau was in full control, with things becoming more loose and using hand held cameras when the story becomes less controlled.

     The short story the movie was based on was called Adjustment Team.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

CASE 39


CASE 39 (2009)
US/CA
Directed by Christian Alvart

CAST:
Renee Zellweger - Emily Jenkins
Jodelle Ferland- Lillith Sullivan
Ian McShane - Det. Mike Barron

PLOT:
     A social worker fights to save a girl from her abusive parents, only to discover that the situation is more dangerous than she ever expected.

REVIEW:
      I usually give horror movies a wide berth to let them get going and try to hit their stride. Some of them just hit it right off the bat and never stop, while some fizzle after the first fifteen minutes. And then there's the ones that wait till the end to get going which by that time you had enough yet you stick with it just to say you did see the whole movie even though you just wanted it to end.  Even when a movie is completely bad, I can usually find something in it to laugh at. It's when a bad movie tries to be more than it is that I get flustered with it. This is one of those movies.


     I must give credit to Jodelle Ferland for doing a decent job as the demon child Lillith Sullivan. It's the little things she does in this that helps sell her character. One scene that stands out is when Bradley Cooper is interviewing her alone and she just ticks her head to the side and just belittles him outright.  It's here that you actually get to see how evil she is. I will say that I could have done without the super-brat routine as she is supposed to be ultimate evil with powers of a demon. Speaking of Bradley Cooper, he did a great job with what he was given. After his interview with Lillith, he comes out haunted and lost. You know he just got his mind screwed with in more ways than one. Too bad they kill him off since he was the best actor in this movie considering what he had to work with. Now we come to Renee Zellweger's "I have no idea what I'm doing here" role. I've never been a fan of Zellweger as I've always seen her as a half rate Joey Lauren Adams who just got a more of a lucky break than she deserved. Here, her "bored get me out this, because it's just a paycheck" attitude in this movie just goes to prove that point even more.


     As for director Christian Alvart, since this was his first true big studio picture, he did fairly well considering the script he had to work with and the bigger name actors. He did have some interesting shots and angles he used but all of that is overshadowed and buried by the script from Ray Wright. It feels as if it was written by a 12 year old emo kid who watched the remake of The Omen and  The Exorcist back to back and had an idea that should have stayed in his head instead on paper. Yes, the first fifteen or so minutes are decent then it goes down hill after Lillith is saved from being a crispy critter in a oven. First thing that hits wrong is that Zellweger's Emily Jenkins asks for custody of un-crispy Lillith and child welfare service grants her temporary custody. I call bullshit on this movie right then and there. I'm a firm believer in suspension of dis-belief, more so in genre films, but this just went too far with that one. Also if this girl is so powerful, as is shown toward the end of this exercise in patience, how is she able to be shoved into a trunk of a sinking car. Then it gets better by showing a gigantic hulk like arm shooting through metal of said trunk to grab at an escaping Zellweger, but yet the demon child cannot rip the trunk to shreds to get out. Yep, that's right. Shitty writing!


     There was a reason why this movie took so long to see the light of day. The movie is just not scary (and no, pumping the sound mix doesn't equal scary). The scares that were there are just "boo" type scares, which are okay, if they were backed up with real scares. But alas, this movie has none, even when it had so many times where it could have been. The studio kept on trying to push this movie back and bury it and for good reason. JeNee said it best when she said she wanted the hour and a half back she lost thanks to this movie and I agree. If you want to see a movie by Alvart go and watch the so much superior Pandorum.

BEST DEATH:
     Ian McShane's expertly placed dog deterrent that goes wrong.

BEST LINE:
     To know what your idea of hell is... and make you live there.

FUN FACTS:
      The movie actually went into production in 2006, but wasn't released in the US until October of 2010.

     Case 39 was released in New Zealand in August of 2009 and opened up at # 12 at the box office there.

     While shooting one of the fire scenes for the movie, a special effect fire got out of control and burned the whole set down, including the studio stage it was built into and almost all of the crew's equipment. Nobody was seriously injured and filming resumed the very next day with equipment being hauled in from all over the world.
To bad the actual film didn't go up in flame as well!