Movies and tele and novels, oh my

The Faculty

A high school movie with a twist, The Faculty is a about aliens who take over a school. Simple enough, right? So why does this movie deserve such a prestigous spot on a blog nobdody ever reads?!? Well I’ll tell you. This movie was directed by Robert Rodriguez. Its one of his early ones. He did a few “not him” movies back then. But anyway, hes known for Desperado, Spykids, Dusk Til Dawn, hes Quenten Tarantino’s best friend. That about sums it up. So a normalish movie by a zany director. Thats part one of why this movie is awesome.

Part two is the cast. This has like every B-list star. The dude who played Frodo, the girl who played the girl in The Fast and the Furious, Selma Hayak, thats them. Also, John Stewart, also. Its kinda like the breakfast club gone wrong, but not at all. Okay, I’m bored now.

Battle Royale

So its Japan… there are a bunch of rowdy, violent teenage kids that decide they don’t want to learn anymore. So what does the government do? Some classes go on “field trips” where all the kids from a class are placed on an island and they have three days to kill each other. The last kid standing gets to go home.

What would you do, would you take your bag or assorted gear and run out to gun down all your best friends? Would you create alliances, protect the ones you love? Would you try and take the system down? The outcomes are endless. I can’t completely summarize this movie because of all the side stories. Theres a lot of character history that presents itslelf in each character confrontation. The way the stories seem to be woven is simple yet elegant. The Main storyline follows Shuya and Nariko who attempt to survive the game of Battle Royale together, getting occasional help from an older kid who has played the game before. The three of them end up trying to make it to the end, but could turn on eachother at any minute.

So if you didn’t already figure this out, the film is pretty bloody. Think Kill Bill on steroids. Despite the gruesome content, at the heart this is really a drama. There are numerous love stories which distract you from all the mindless killing, making this movie somewhat watchable for the cleaner crowed. However, there is this one character… who signed up for Battle Royale for fun… he doesn’t hold back at all. There is also a small amount of humor regarding the character of the teacher. He doesn’t act how you’d expect.

In all, this movie is creepy, messed up, dangerous, but also, GENIUS. Kids have to fight to death on an island. Its like Lord of the Flies but they’re given murder weapons and a time limit. This is a unique one I hope they never make an Americanized version of.

Blow

This isn’t like my normal movie posts. This one isn’t freaky or twisted or filled with gore. It was, however under the radar during its 2001 release. Johnny Depp stars as George Jung, a cocaine smuggler. It catelogs his life from childhood to old age and paints a picture of “the good life” in the 1970’s and 1980’s as well as Jung’s eventual collapse and incarceration. The film can be thought of as a biography, in the fact that George Jung did actually exist, but many of the events which took place within the film are dramatized.

I like to think of this as a combination of Scarface and Goodfellas. Theres that same narrative flow as there was in Goodfellas, but with the rough edges Scarface had. The movie also lays host to numerous A and B list stars in addition to Johnny Depp, for example Penelope Cruz, Ray Liotta, and Raul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman).

Near Dark

Two words, vampire western. You sure don’t see many of these. The story follows Caleb, a teenage son of a farmer who meats a girl in town. He wants her to stay with him for some time longer, but she wants to go home. She bites him, and runs off into the wilderness. As he walks home after not being to sure what just happened, the sun begins to rise, and out of nowhere a van zooms up and pulls him inside. The girl Caleb had met is part of a small “family” of vampires that have been living on the road and off the radar for years, and Caleb is the newest “addition”.

The movie is part horror, park drama, and part action. Theres brutal killings, old fashion gunfights, a love story, and a struggle between Caleb and the rest of the vampires. What I believe truely makes this movie is the character of Severan played by Bill Paxton (who I previously mentioned in another movie, Brain Dead). He is the nastiest, most savage of the vampires, but has a charismatic aspect that you’d be surprised to uncover. The movie also has a really 1980’s feel to it, which I may credit to the choice of colors used, but definely fits the bleak mood given off.

American Beauty

I find that a lot of movies I enjoy watching are from 1999. I mean yeah, I really like movies from other time periods, but 1999 had a load of high quality titles, and this one, American Beauty, is no exception. American Beauty stars Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham, a 42 year old man stuck in a dead-end job with a loveless marriage in suburbia. He becomes infatuated with his daughter’s best friend, and suddently has a radical shift in personality. He quits his job, and starts to “relive” his highschool days. He works part time at a burger shop, smokes marijuana, and becomes obsessed with body-building. But he isn’t alone in his escapades, his wife starts an affair, and his daughter becomes wrapped up with the strange boy who lives next door.

The real draw of this movie comes from hypothetical situations. What if everyone just stopped doing what was socially acceptable and had fun with their time, and actually lived life instead of submit themself to the corporate machine? Consider this a window into such a world, and realize just what would be necessary if it came true.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

A cult classic if there ever was one, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical comedy with elements of horror and science fiction. The movie follows Brad and Janet who show up at an old castle when their car breaks down. Once inside, they find their hosts to be anything but ordinary. They have come upon a transvestite convention led by Dr. Frank-N-Furter who continues his strange actions by creating himself a man in the style of a Frankenstein story.

If you like bizarre 1970’s films, this one is for you. For you other people, this is possibly the best movie ever made, so don’t miss out if you get an opportunity to see it. This film is also notable for creating the song “Time Warp” which everyone has heard whether they know it or not.

-Mike

There isn’t one this week. I have no time anymore, but I want to make some. Its not like I ran out of movies. It will pick up next week.

Duel

Duel is Steven Spielberg’s forgotten first feature film from 1971. The plot is surprisingly simple, David Mann, your average motorist, is driving along the highway. He encounters a huge, ghastly truck, and attempts to pass it, but the truck accelerates and starts honking at him. David finds himself being chased and terrorized by the massive truck. He gets into a high speed cat and mouse game on winding desert roads, as just as he thinks he has lost the truck, it shows up again.

Perhaps one of the most frightening aspects of the film is that you never see the driver of the truck. It could be anyone, which plays into a general phobia of people. Another scary aspect is you have no explanation as to why the truck driver is terrorizing David, making you wonder just how crazy the driver is and why they are engaging in such erratic behavior.

-Mike

The Game

The movie revolves around something called an “Alternate Reality Game” or ARG for short. It can be basically be described as a role playing game, but you don’t come to it, it comes to you. So for example, imagine you wake up one morning in this huge mansion where everyone treats you like a rock star. As you walk the streets, people flock to you for autographs, you get a call from somebody claiming to be your agent who informs you you have to put a show on that night, etc. The prior day, you were just some joe shmoo, but this day you are living out some wild dream.

Nicholas Van Orton is an extremely wealthy banker who is known for being stern and serious. He gets a birthday present from his brother from a company called CRS for something called “The Game”. He goes to CRS, fills out a lengthy application, and is called later to be told his application was rejected. When he arrives home, he finds a clown doll infront of his house with a key labeled CRS in its mouth. “The Game” has started. His game goes smoothly for a little bit, but then weird things start going on. He starts getting placed in strange and dangerously horrifying situations he can’t stop, and on top of that, the company CRS seems to have vanished.

It gets to the point that Nicholas is unaware if what is happening is part of the game or not. Imagine if you found yourself being shot at by a police officer and not knowing if they were a real law enforcer or someone hired by a vindictive company to kill you. Is your waitress really a waitress? Is your taxi driver really a taxi driver?

-Mike

The Jacket

The Jacket is a 2005 psychological thriller that follows Jack Starks, a war veteran, returning home in 1992. Soon on his way back, he suffers amnesia and is accused of murdering a police officer. He is then sentenced to stay in a mental institution. A psychiatrist there, Dr. Thomas Becker, starts using Jack for experiments in which Jack is injected with a drug, put in a straitjacket, and then tossed in a drawer in the morgue. Once in the drawer, Jack’s mind propels to the year 2007 where he learns he died four days after being sent to the institution in 1992. So as Jack emerges from the drawer back in present day 1992, he starts a race to figure out how he dies by going back into the future, with hope to prevent his death before its too late.

The thing that really hooked me about this movie is that it is a new twist on the idea of time travel. Countless movies have people going back in time to correct the present, but this is the only one I am aware of that sends the main character into the future to do so. It keeps you guessing, trying to figure out the story before the character does, which is getting rarer and rarer in today’s films.

-Mike