What The Hell Did I Just Watch? "Stitches" Movie Review

Netflix, you dirty ol' bastard!  Well, I have just been tricked again by Netflix to watch a movie that I have mixed feelings about.  Let me explain.

First, let me just get the plot of this movie called 'Stitches' out into the open so you have an idea from where I am coming.

******Spoiler Altert******

Stitches is, essentially, a movie about a party clown (Stitches), who is killed within the first 10 minutes of movie as a result of receiving a kitchen knife to the face.  The rest of the movie is about Stitches coming back to life, a clown zombie if you will, and exacting his revenge on all those who have wronged him; specifically, the kids who teased him at the birthday party where he died.  

I am going to highlight the plot a bit further now in order to explain my mixed feelings about this film.

The movie begins when Stitches arrives at a kid's birthday party. Stitches, then, attempts to entertain the kids with a variety of clown tricks.  The kids are not thrilled by the clown's antics.  So, they begin to tease the clown and give him a hard time.  Specifically, one kid ties Stitches' shoe strings together (classic prank), while another kid throws a ball at Stitches causing him
to go off-balance and fall directly onto a kitchen knife that was placed, by an adult, in a dishwasher with the blade sticking straight up.

Who puts a kitchen knife in the dishwasher with he blade sticking straight up and then leaves the dishwasher open, especially with kids hyped up on cake running around???

Anyway, as I said before, Stitches falls on the knife and it goes through his left eye and out the top of his skull.  Blood, brains, and gore spray everywhere (I mean everywhere). It's hilarious the amount of blood and brains that spew from this clown's head wound.  But this is only the beginning of the gore that ensues during the rest of the movie.

At this point, Stitches is "dead" and buried in a grave yard.  The kid, who was having the birthday party, goes to the grave yard and witnesses an ancient clown ritual being performed.  Apparently, when clown's receive their official induction into the 'clownship' they are given an egg with their clown faces painted on it.  This egg is symbolic of the eternal life as a clown.  It also is the thing that ends up destroying the zombie version of Stitches at the end of the movie.

We fast forward 6 years later when the kids are adolescences in middle-school.  The former birthday boy has a pretty severe case of PTSD from the incident 6 years before.  He hallucinates frequently of people around him turning into clowns and performing gruesome acts on other people around him.  For example, one hallucination is when he is sitting in a classroom with his classmates, the teacher turns into a murderous clown, walks up to a kid and rips his dick off in the middle of class.  Then, the clown, who now has a kid's dick in his hand, trots around the classroom displaying the dick to everyone.  Oh, and as the viewers to this spectacle, we are graciously awarded the opportunity to watch the clown rip the kid's dick off while the camera is zoomed in on the entire ordeal.  So, not only do we see the dick being ripped off, but we see it up close and personal and there is plenty of flesh ripping imagery to accompany it.

Shortly after that entertaining sequence (can I call it entertaining???), we learn that it is the hallucinating kid's birthday again.  So, the kid wants to have a birthday party.  He invites the entire school over to his house and a ton of people show up.

During the party, Stitches is magically resurrected from the grave and on a mission to kill all of the kids responsible for his death.  The rest of the movie is about Stitches cleverly and creatively killing a bunch of kids.  For example, he kicks a kid's head off, stabs a girl through the eye with an umbrella, uses a ice-cream scooper to scoop a kid's brains out of his head while simultaneously making an ice-cream sunday; only instead of ice-cream, Stitches uses brains, and disembowels a one guy turning the removed bowel in a balloon animal; specifically, a dog.  All of these acts are accompanied by exaggerated gore, blood spewing, raunchy carnage, screaming, and howling cries of pain by Stitches' victims as they are mutilated.

The movie ends with the birthday boy destroying the egg with Stitches' clown face drawn on it.  When the egg is destroyed, Stitches explodes, but get this, he explodes and the resulting carnage is egg yolk.  And once Stitches is dead, everybody lives happily ever after.

Or do they???

Alright, let me return to what I started this post out with; namely, that I have mixed feelings about this movie.  However, I must first make a confession.  While writing this post I realized something -- I love this movie.  The hyperbolic gore, blood, bad acting, and overall raunchiness speaks to me in a way that I want an independent B-horror movie to speak.  I don't expect this kind of movie to have a good plot or character depth.  I watch these movies because I want to be grossed out, but I also want laugh at the grossness.  Let's call Stitches what it is, a low budget gross out film, and, as such, I can assure you that it delivers.

I don't need to bother recommending this movie because if you are a fan of B-horror movies, then you already know what Stitches is all about.  And if you don't like B-horror movies, then there is no need to waste time trying to convince you that you should watch it.  This movie was made for a particular audience and they know who they are.  However, for those of you who are on the fence about it, give it 15 minutes and if after that you don't like it, turn it off because chances are that you won't like the rest.

As of 2/5/2016 'Stitches' is available on Netflix (US).

Movie Reviewers Need to Worry About Grammar, Here's Why...

My fellow movie reviewists: we are engaged in content warfare.  A battle for views, traffic, and acknowledgement.  Our weaponry consists of words, periods, commas, and the occasional semicolon (not to leave out the 'oh-so-important' parenthetical).  However, our weaponry is dull, gunky, and perpetually jamming because of poor grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other linguistic errors.  It is time to clean and sharpen our weaponry so we can continue fighting the good fight.

After spending about an hour and a half reading through various movie review blogs and comments, I have become skeptical that the individuals writing these blogs and comments are not equipped to do so, at least linguistically speaking.  This skepticism has prompted this post, which is directed at anybody, especially movie reviewists, who attempts to compare two things or rate one thing over another.  Enjoy.

In the movie review business, we are constantly comparing and contrasting two or more things and rating one thing over another.  So, having a strong grasp on the elements of language that allow us to accomplish these goals is crucial.  However, as I scroll through many movie review posts and blogs, both amateur and professional (believe it or not), I am constantly seeing the misuse of 'then' and 'than.'  Thus, I thought a post about the correct uses of both of these terms is warranted and hopefully movie reviewists, who are confused about when to use 'then' or 'than,' will stumble across it and correct their errors.  Obviously, this post is directed at English speaking people; however, I suppose someone who is a non-native English speaker and trying to improve their English could find this helpful as well.

The difference between the two is simply really.  The two most common instances when 'then' is used is when talking about temporal relationships between happenings or in conditional statements.  A couple of examples of the former are as follows:

1) I woke up this morning and then I ate breakfast.
2) Sally told her boss to screw himself and then she walked out.

A couple of the latter instances are as follows:
1) If I woke up this morning, then I ate breakfast.
2) If Sally walked out, then she told her boss to screw himself.

The use of the word 'than' is primarily used, at least in movie reviews, to indicate that the writer is contrasting two things, preferring, or rating, whether actually or hypothetically, one thing over another.  A few examples are as follows:

1) I like this movie better than  that one.
2) I would rather watch this television show or play this game etc. rather than watch any other show or play any other game.
3) Movie (X) has a higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes than on the IMDB; or
4) I would rate movie (X) higher than movie (Y).

If one can master these simple differences, then they are more likely than not to demonstrate to their readers that they have a strong grasp of the English language. This is a good thing because readers who have a keen eye for grammar foul-ups are likely to stumble through posts with multiple inaccuracies.  So, the writer risks that particular reader not returning to his/her website.  If one is okay with the consequences of the risks taken by faulty grammar, then simply disregard this post altogether.  However, my guess is that most writers want their readers to return.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil - Review

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a horror/comedy that lives up to both genre labels, but is more heavy on the comedy than the horror. You're not going to be scared, but you are going to laugh.

The story is as follows: two backwoods country guys (Tucker and Dale) are taking a trip to fix up and renovate a vacation cabin that Tucker has just bought.  While Tucker and Dale are fixing up the cabin, they encounter some stereotypical dimwitted teenagers common to the horror genre.  Quickly, Tucker, Dale, and the teenagers find themselves in a situation wherein the line between who is good and evil is blurry at best.  Tucker and Dale think the teenagers are out to get them and at the same time the teenagers think the same about Tucker and Dale.  There's a kidnapping, people start dying in gruesome, but creative and  hilarious ways.  The movie basically rests on a HUGE misunderstanding due to a lack of communication.  

As I said at the beginning, this movie is classified as a horror/comedy.  However, the only thing about this movie that strikes me as being "horror" is that there is a lot blood, guts, gore, and death.  I suppose that could qualify as horror, but the story that is being told throughout the movie quickly dilutes any elements of "fear" or "scary-factor."  If you wanted to count the fear of dying as consistent with the "fear" representative of the horror genre, then this movie is within its classification.

I recommend this movie primarily because of the story and its hilarity, not necessarily because its scary in any meaningful sense.  There isn't great acting either; however, there are enough characters representing enough personalities that you get a little bit of everything in the way of character development, but don't expect anything deep.  So, if you like exaggerated gore and decent effects that are expected from a horror film and idiocy from characters and if you have an hour and a half to kill one day, then give this movie a shot.

It is currently available on Netflix as of 1/25/2016.   

Uncovering Systemic Pedophilia: A movie review of 'Spotlight'

First and foremost, I want to say that this movie and review is not attacking the Catholic Church or any religion in any way, shape, or form. If you know, know of, or even have children yourself, this movie review will hit home and open your eyes. Even if you don’t you’ll be able to understand and relate to the issues they bring up in this movie to your everyday life. These issues include favoritism, entitlement, privilege, buddy-buddy hook-ups, quid pro quo (this for that), the list goes on. Let’s get started and you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about.

Spotlight is a very small team of investigative journalists that are a part of the Boston Globe newspaper. They tackle challenging stories that could take a year or more to investigate so they can report it with as much accuracy as possible. A new editor comes to the paper and starts go through previous articles and investigations that were written. He stumbles across a story about a priest who had molested 80 children and wants to dig deeper.  He assigns Spotlight to the story and they go deep into the community by talking to victims, unsealing court documents, and challenging the Catholic Church as a whole.

They state in the movie that Boston is 60% catholic and almost everybody is involved with the church in one way or another. While the investigation was going on they found out that there was an enormous number of priests and children involved and that almost all the priest involved were still active. Needless to say this movie will keep you interested and have you thinking beyond your viewing of this movie.

  

The Lost Art of Patience and Its Implications on Film

Watching movies is about as relaxing of an activity that one can engage.  Or is it?  This poses an interesting question.  How should one watch a movie?  If  movie watching is an aesthetic experience, then there are underlying rules for watching a movie.  One should focus their attention on elements of a film such as: how the soundtrack blends with whats happening on the screen or how successful different colors in a scene evoke the appropriate emotional reaction.  These are obvious elements of a film that even the most amateur viewer, such as myself, are able to identify.  A viewer is more likely to recognize these elements if that viewer is paying attention to the movie.  A distracted viewing of a film is surely not going to have the impact on a viewer that an active, even semi-active, viewer will have.  

A subtle yet almost imperative faculty one should possess when watching film, especially one like “It Follows,” is that of patience.  Patience is a lost art in the fast paced, sound bite, and twitter induced nausea culture that has unfolded in the last decade or so.  Afraid of the implications of the loss of patience as a virtue, I began to contemplate those implications on film and viewership.  This contemplation manifested itself during my viewing of “It Follows.”  

This movie, of which I have posted a brief review with no spoilers, is a slow-paced, slow-developing, suspenseful movie that requires a complete level of patience and focus.  There are no explosions, limited gore, no scream queens, and no dumbass decisions made by characters that do not reflect a shred of rationality -- which we are regularly exposed to by Hollywood films.  With the Hollywood status quo as of late, there is no need for patience because everything is intense all of the time.  “It Follows” deviates from the Hollywood formula and actually spends quite a bit of time building suspense. 

During my viewing of "It Follows," I initially suffered from action withdraw.  However, after some brief introspection, I became aware that I had a problem.  I was not being patient and allowing a sufficient amount of time to pass for the movie to develop meaningful suspense and anticipation.  Time is required to develop suspense within a plot which, hopefully, leads to an eventual climax.  A viewer should have a high level of patience and be actively focused on the film in order to allow the film to work on their consciousness.  “It Follows,” is arguably an example of a film that requires this level of patience and focus in order for the story-line to work on the viewers consciousness so that the viewer feels a sense of climax at the appropriate time.  

There are a lot of reviews suggesting that slower-paced films, such as “It Follows,” are poor films because they are boring or not catchy which implies a fault in the film.  However, I argue that while the film may have its faults, it is strongly correlated with a viewership not mentally equipped to watch it.  A viewer who has their reserves of patience and focus tapped before a film like “It Follows” builds even a ounce of suspense has fallen victim to the nausea.  A culture pregnant with people demanding unlimited attention and patience, ironically, have none to give. Unfortunately, this may be leading to a surplus of passive, distracted, inattentive people, which seemingly has implications on how movies develop the element of suspense.

Let me know what you think in the comment section.

Review for Bridges of Spies (a film about The Cold War with Tom Hanks)

I recently watched a movie called Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks.  Hanks plays a lawyer who is recruited by the United States government to defend a Soviet Union spy captured within the United States territory.  While Hanks is representing the Soviet spy, an American spy plane flying over the Union is shot down and the pilot taken hostage.  Hanks is then ordered to negotiate a trade between the Soviet Union and the United States.  The deal is easy, the Soviets hand over the American spy plane pilot and the Americans hand over the Soviet spy.

The plot is simple; however, the the process and struggle Hanks' character is forced to experience is what makes this movie a great flashback to a time of critical uncertainty.  A time when school children were taught to duck and cover under their school desks in case a nuclear bomb exploded near by.   Lewis Black, a stand-up comedian, actually has a bit on this which is hilarious.  I highly recommend you watch it.

This film is full of timeless ethical and political quarrels with which Hanks' character is forced to cope.  Questions such as: are foreign spies entitled to American due process of law?  Is an American attorney justified in defending a foreign spy?  To what extent does attorney-client privilege reach when the interests of national security are at stake?  These kinds of questions and more are framed within the Cold War context throughout the film.  However, these questions, and ones of a similar fashion, are not exclusively timestamped for the Cold War era.  These questions continue to plague our society and others as well.  For example, remember the debates swirling around the handling of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay?  Similar issues, different time.

The film's title and plot summary might lead one to infer that there will be a lot of action, thrills, and intense scenes of suspense, because we have been conditioned to associate spy movies with James Bond like acrobatics and unlikely heroics.  Bridge of Spies, instead, has a slow developing story due to the nuance and attention to detail capturing the social, political, legal, and historical elements associated with the Cold War era.

The movie runs about 2 hours and 20 minutes.  So, if you do plan on watching it, then prepare yourself for a lengthy viewing.  I plan on doing a follow up article in the next few days examining a couple of the legal and ethical questions raised by this film, so check back if your interested.

Review for 'It Follows"

It Follows 

If you’ve seen this movie you definitely know how great it is. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on, arguably, the greatest independent horror film to date. This movie is the Napoleon Dynamite of the horror genre.  You don’t know what the exact year the film takes place and there is not a lot of back story.  There is an entity (the “It”) passed to the main character, and the only way to get rid of “It” is to pass “It” along to someone else resulting in a seemingly endless cycle of hexed people unaware of their fate.

This movie's plot is suspenseful, mysterious, simple yet complex and the characters play the role of confused and very frustrated as well.  The creepiness, mystery, and intrigue, enhanced by the creepy soundtrack, followed by watching this movie is not shortly forgotten.  You will surely pass a positive recommendation on to others, just as "It" is passed along, and they will follow suit after watching this eerie movie.

I highly recommend giving this film a chance.

It Follows imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1045954304/tt3235888?ref_=tt_ov_i#