Saturday Afternoon Matinees
Today has been really slow, so I figured I'd kill most of my free time by watching some of these movies I'd downloaded. So why don't we kill some more free time by talking about them, hm?
First on my plate today was The Ruins. Released back in April to not a whole lot of fanfare, The Ruins is an adaptation of Scott Smith's novel about a group of tourists in Mexico who, while adventuring to some ancient Aztec ruins, become trapped and are systematically picked off by the flesh-eating vines that have a stranglehold on the area around them. I'd read and enjoyed the novel in the past, and I thought the movie complimented it well. There's some differences that turn up in the translation, like events that happen to certain characters in the book happening to other characters in the movie, along with a different climax. But considering that the book's author wrote the movie, I suppose it shouldn't be that big of a deal after all.
The Ruins is a solid horror movie, one that is both quite graphic and engagingly scary. The only bad part is that since I'd read the book before, none of the movie's scenes really came as a surprise. Nothing is shocking if you know it's going to happen. Other than that, I will say that I did enjoy The Ruins. With decent acting, well-done special effects, and effective scares, the movie earns three and a half stars on my patent-pending Sutton Scale.
I followed The Ruins with George A. Romero's latest zombie movie, Diary of the Dead. I'd really wanted to see this when it was released theatrically back in February, but I didn't really have a chance to because it only played in 48 theaters. And here I thought Midnight Meat Train was the one that got screwed by its distributor. Anyway, Diary of the Dead essentially works as a modernized side-story to Romero's original Night of the Living Dead. The movie follows a group of college students in the middle of making a horror movie when the zombie plague begins. Their horror movie quickly ends up becoming a documentary about their attempts to survive the blossoming zombie apocalypse. So in short, Romero's pretty much taken Cloverfield, replaced the crummy Godzilla wannabe with zombies, and set the whole thing in Pennsylvania.
And I'll admit that I did enjoy Diary of the Dead. I'm not sure if I liked it as much as I liked the stylistically-similar Spanish film [Rec], but I still think it was a very entertaining movie. The crazy thing about Diary of the Dead is that it simultaneously feels and doesn't feel like a typical George Romero zombie movie. The filmmaking style is unlike anything I've ever seen Romero do, even if the slow-moving zombies are the same. I think it all comes from the writing. Romero's zombie movies have always had some sort of subtext, some kind of hidden social commentary that completely changes the movie if you can pick up on it. Diary of the Dead is no different.
With this chapter into his zombie universe, Romero takes a look at our media overindulgence. From governmental spins on news stories, to bloggers, to those particular folks who have to record every waking moment of their day so the footage can be uploaded to MySpace or YouTube, the whole shebang is Romero's focus here. It's basically a movie about how my generation would handle the end of the world. Do we we deal with things rationally, do we revert to our ancient primal nature, or do we fire up our camcorders and use it to shield ourselves from reality?
And I'd be remiss if I didn't note the little digs Romero gets in on the super-fast zombies that have gained popularity through movies like The Return of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Considering that Romero has been pretty vocal about his, shall we say, "lack of enthusiasm" regarding zombies that can run, I can't really say that I'm surprised he added the quick little "dead things don't run!" lines of dialogue. As a fan of the horror genre, I got a kick out of it.
Diary of the Dead marks Romero's fifth zombie movie in as many decades. The four that came in the past were all entertaining in their own way, and I thought Diary of the Dead was just as good. And if this whole Blair Witch style of filmmaking continues, it could surely be considered one of the best in that genre. All things considered, I believe I'll score it with another three and a half stars on the Sutton Scale, and give it a thumbs up. I'll more than likely end up doing a full-blown review of it for Sutton At The Movies one of these days. Perhaps when Quarantine comes out in about four weeks or so, I can lump these two, [Rec], and Cloverfield all together and review them at the same time. Maybe I could even throw in Blair Witch 2 just for fun.
So yeah, that's pretty much all I've been up to today. The only bad things are that my air conditioner is broken, meaning I've been sweltering in 90-degree heat all day, and that I'm going to have to miss the midnight showing of the original Friday the 13th movie up in Lexington tonight. That normally wouldn't bother me, but considering they're actually having members of the cast there to introduce it, I'm really bummed. The Friday the 13th franchise has always been really special to me, and how many other opportunities like this would I have? Sigh. Maybe whenever they invent time travel, I can come back in time to tonight and buy myself a ticket. Does anybody have Doc Brown's telephone number handy?
First on my plate today was The Ruins. Released back in April to not a whole lot of fanfare, The Ruins is an adaptation of Scott Smith's novel about a group of tourists in Mexico who, while adventuring to some ancient Aztec ruins, become trapped and are systematically picked off by the flesh-eating vines that have a stranglehold on the area around them. I'd read and enjoyed the novel in the past, and I thought the movie complimented it well. There's some differences that turn up in the translation, like events that happen to certain characters in the book happening to other characters in the movie, along with a different climax. But considering that the book's author wrote the movie, I suppose it shouldn't be that big of a deal after all.
The Ruins is a solid horror movie, one that is both quite graphic and engagingly scary. The only bad part is that since I'd read the book before, none of the movie's scenes really came as a surprise. Nothing is shocking if you know it's going to happen. Other than that, I will say that I did enjoy The Ruins. With decent acting, well-done special effects, and effective scares, the movie earns three and a half stars on my patent-pending Sutton Scale.
I followed The Ruins with George A. Romero's latest zombie movie, Diary of the Dead. I'd really wanted to see this when it was released theatrically back in February, but I didn't really have a chance to because it only played in 48 theaters. And here I thought Midnight Meat Train was the one that got screwed by its distributor. Anyway, Diary of the Dead essentially works as a modernized side-story to Romero's original Night of the Living Dead. The movie follows a group of college students in the middle of making a horror movie when the zombie plague begins. Their horror movie quickly ends up becoming a documentary about their attempts to survive the blossoming zombie apocalypse. So in short, Romero's pretty much taken Cloverfield, replaced the crummy Godzilla wannabe with zombies, and set the whole thing in Pennsylvania.
And I'll admit that I did enjoy Diary of the Dead. I'm not sure if I liked it as much as I liked the stylistically-similar Spanish film [Rec], but I still think it was a very entertaining movie. The crazy thing about Diary of the Dead is that it simultaneously feels and doesn't feel like a typical George Romero zombie movie. The filmmaking style is unlike anything I've ever seen Romero do, even if the slow-moving zombies are the same. I think it all comes from the writing. Romero's zombie movies have always had some sort of subtext, some kind of hidden social commentary that completely changes the movie if you can pick up on it. Diary of the Dead is no different.
With this chapter into his zombie universe, Romero takes a look at our media overindulgence. From governmental spins on news stories, to bloggers, to those particular folks who have to record every waking moment of their day so the footage can be uploaded to MySpace or YouTube, the whole shebang is Romero's focus here. It's basically a movie about how my generation would handle the end of the world. Do we we deal with things rationally, do we revert to our ancient primal nature, or do we fire up our camcorders and use it to shield ourselves from reality?
And I'd be remiss if I didn't note the little digs Romero gets in on the super-fast zombies that have gained popularity through movies like The Return of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Considering that Romero has been pretty vocal about his, shall we say, "lack of enthusiasm" regarding zombies that can run, I can't really say that I'm surprised he added the quick little "dead things don't run!" lines of dialogue. As a fan of the horror genre, I got a kick out of it.
Diary of the Dead marks Romero's fifth zombie movie in as many decades. The four that came in the past were all entertaining in their own way, and I thought Diary of the Dead was just as good. And if this whole Blair Witch style of filmmaking continues, it could surely be considered one of the best in that genre. All things considered, I believe I'll score it with another three and a half stars on the Sutton Scale, and give it a thumbs up. I'll more than likely end up doing a full-blown review of it for Sutton At The Movies one of these days. Perhaps when Quarantine comes out in about four weeks or so, I can lump these two, [Rec], and Cloverfield all together and review them at the same time. Maybe I could even throw in Blair Witch 2 just for fun.
So yeah, that's pretty much all I've been up to today. The only bad things are that my air conditioner is broken, meaning I've been sweltering in 90-degree heat all day, and that I'm going to have to miss the midnight showing of the original Friday the 13th movie up in Lexington tonight. That normally wouldn't bother me, but considering they're actually having members of the cast there to introduce it, I'm really bummed. The Friday the 13th franchise has always been really special to me, and how many other opportunities like this would I have? Sigh. Maybe whenever they invent time travel, I can come back in time to tonight and buy myself a ticket. Does anybody have Doc Brown's telephone number handy?
posted by Matt Sutton at
8:32 PM
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