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Happy Death Day (2017)

Happy Death Day (2017)

Today is the first day of the rest of your life!

And that's the truth. Don't you doubt it. I guess when you keep reliving the same day forever and ever you eventually realize how important this one day can really be! When someone keeps (and succeeds in) trying to kill you night after night. As you live on in a web of bad relationships and choices - even though you're not that bad a person - something eventually hits you. And if you are a bad person then this might be a good time to change.

The plot's similar to a bunch of other time warp movies, most recent example I can think of being Naked (an irresponsible black man living his wedding day over and over until he can sort himself out before the vows - it's a comedy), or Edge of Tomorrow, a way more awesome sci-fi alternation, and as the guy in the movie mentions: Groundhog Day, but here it's all that but with the horror twist. It does feel pretty new.

It's not only horror though. In fact there's surprisingly little horror considering it's a horror movie. It's... comedy? Action? Drama? I guess it is horror after all, but in a setting that doesn't feel continually dark and depraving, but lets you loosen up a bit, until something happens again.

It's a bit like Scream, or similar movies, in that it has a both comical and serious tone, and though it's not parodying horror movies in general it moves seamlessly between the eerie and the everyday.

It's well-filmed, well-paced, and pretty tense. Not bad at all, and Jessica Rothe plays a good lead role. Also: it's Blumhouse! You'll recognize the style. It's not totally new or incredibly scary, but I think it's worth a...

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Knock Knock (2015)

Knock Knock (2015)

What happens when a man welcomes in a couple of lost girls into his house, who try to seduce him, and succeed, and then won't leave?

He offers to call a cab, then offers to drive them, but they won't go. They turn his house, and world, upside down. One thing leads to another and suddenly he's a prisoner in his own home. Everything's gone wrong.

The movie's well-filmed, and acted (props Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas), with surprisingly intimate scenes - artistic too, and a strange kind of savagery... but without violence. It is a thriller. It is heavy.

And after all that... that's how it ends? The irony. The humility. The disappointment. The twisted comedy when it all goes down... how can you possibly like an ending like this?! It's neither good or bad. It's just wrong. It's just depressing. No matter how well-filmed and creatively unique it is.

It also reminds me of Spring Breakers, but Keanu makes this one his own, even if I definitely liked the former a lot more than this one. It had some form of justice to it. This... just is. I think the end is what jumps it from a top score to I must rate it:

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Never Leave Alive (2017)

Never Leave Alive (2017)

AKA The Most Dangerous Game or 3 Hours Until Dead or Dangerous Games. How many titles does the same movie need?!

A hunter becomes the hunted. Rick Rainsford - tough but drunk tough guy, and an unwilling female companion survive a shipwreck and end up on an island, where they are rescued but soon made a part of an unwilling manhunt by an eccentric Russian: Zarrof. (Hey there was a guy with that name in the old Skyscraper movie too!)

This movie could've been alright. They got the sceneries right. The angles. The script's OK too. What's not OK is the acting (for most guys - John Hennigan included), the filler, the surplus of talks, childish bonding rituals and disappointing lack of action (in a dual sense), steady shaky cam and that low-budget feel of it all. Most of all though: the special effects.

Michelle Taylor's maybe the only redeeming point in the movie. The villains, played by Joseph Gatt and Eric Etebari, aren't all they're cracked up to be, and there's really not much else there. Maybe if they'd skipped that island bit this would've been alright. It has it's moments, but not many.

 rated 2/5: decent

The Movie Reviews Writing Break

Been writing movie reviews all day. Or trying to. Trying to keep my discipline going.

I took a trip to the grocery store first, and then another trip for a package since I shopped too much food to fetch it on the same trip, then I lay out on the terrace and tried to get some sun before the (predicted) rain came in, reading a book while I was there. Sublime multitasking moments.

The clouds came in, the rain came in, and I went in.

At 18:00 the rain was supposed to stop and hold for about an hour. It stopped, so I went out for a by-now-way-overdue jog (life in Stockholm seems to turn into some kind of self-destructive sleep-deprived martyr-like style of life in which I eat too much, buy crappy food, move too little, fuel my days with distractions and get stressed over petty things way too easily), when halfway through the rain set in.

It poured. The thunder crackled in the distance. I took refuge under a pine tree and thought about how you're not supposed to stand under trees when there's thunder - but it wasn't that close by.

I thought I'd meditate a bit. De-stress. I put my palm against the crude bark of the pine, trying to tap into its inner energy. I listened and watched the falling rain. I leaned against the tree as it closed in and the room for shelter shrunk. I punched the raindrops a bit and jumped around, but stopped since I feel like I'm in pretty shit shape right now. I am not actually in that shitty shape... yet, but it's not improving. I ate a bag of chips for lunch.

Then I got impatient and jogged home in the torment, took a shower for fear of the thousands of ticks I might've brushed up against on my wild run through the wet grass, though I'm not sure they like to sit on wet grass, and here I am typing up these reviews again. The rain's stopped now.

Or rather I'm: finishing, publishing, and revising retrospectively. A simple but time-consuming and wrong-order process.

The sun sets outside, coloring the sky red and purple. I try to take some pictures through the blinds but it's hard to capture. I take a bundle anyway. I manage a few really good ones. I then sit down again with the intention to keep going with the reviews. Hope to finish at least six more, and then maybe I can watch a movie. Just felt like writing something betweentimes.

Just learned a new word there thanks to spellcheck! There you go.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)

The unforgettably beautiful actress, producer, inventor and mother, married to six men, hooked on Meth Amphetamine by Dr. Feelgood, maker of patents which ended up helping win the World War and protect the president, and yet she stayed in the spotlight for her looks more than anything else - and fell out when those looks betrayed her.

She lived a pretty unique life. It started good, but ended badly. But maybe not so badly after all. What a story. It's one worth hearing.

Though her life sure was interesting, this documentary is sometimes also surprisingly ordinary. There's a lot of talk, and not a lot of action. There's not a lot of controversial footage either (at least there's a glimpse), but more so her story told from the angle of how unfairly she was treated because of her looks, and how much more she did than look good in the movies, which might have something to do with the director being female.

It's all told with suitable visual imagery though, with interview and/or narrative, with intrigue, and a good pace, although I feel the angle's not always entirely neutral. But what is entirely neutral, after all? Whomever the director is I'm sure there'll be some form of bias, and maybe this form is for the better after all, in that we do get to see a bigger picture than we might have otherwise. I learned a lot, about the lady I knew more by name and face than anything else.

I wouldn't have minded more Ecstasy, but even without it really was an interesting, inspiring, and somewhat tragic life story, told with integrity and curiosity. The best way after all.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Absolutely Anything (2015)

Absolutely Anything (2015)

What happens when a galactic superiority decides to give a random human being the powers to do absolutely anything, as a test, to see if he's ready to become part of their clique of universal rulers, and that random someone happens to be Simon Pegg?

Well, a random character played by Simon Pegg, as well as the stereotype of the characters Simon Pegg usually plays (a very ordinary-looking, somewhat awkward and clumsy English guy).

Pegg's character is Neil, who is madly in love with Catherine, who is played by Kate Beckinsale. Romantic comedy? Yes... sort of.

There's also Ray, who turns from a random co-collaborator to a real ray of hope as the movie plot thickens, and a dog who can talk (voiced by Robin Williams!), and lots of special effects (props on the alien glow in particular) and humorous happenings thereof.

Also there's a bad guy (I'm not as fond of him), and the imminent destruction of Earth does this unknowing random main character fail to meet the expectations of this particular galactic elite.

The Chief is voiced by John Cleese too! JSYK. Great cast.

It's pretty wacky. It's wacky but also surprisingly ordinary: a love story with a tinge of sci-fi, predictable as a whole but not in all details, and though I really enjoyed it all the way through I also feel like it could've been more, and I wonder if Pegg really was the ultimate choice for his role. Looking back at Jim Carrey as Bruce Almighty, with the powers of God upon him bestowed, simple a scenario as that was, this all seems somewhat... tame.

I do like the sci-fi twist compared to the more traditional predecessor, but surely there could've been more to it too. I'm thinking depth. The excitement doesn't lie so much in the jokes, or the events, as in how they're angled. How they make the characters feel. How serious the imminent destruction of Earth is made to seem (and it never really seems that serious... even at the end).

Wonder what would've become of it had this been part of the Cornetto trilogy, or just a separate piece by that by now infamous director duo (Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright)? As it is it's good, but... implicit in its simplicity. Not exciting enough? Simple entertainment with creative flare.

 rated 3/5: not bad

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