The Host

The Host: This South Korean monster movie arrives on DVD amid overwhelming hype. With reviews such as “One of the greatest Monster movies ever made” and “On par with Jaws”, I was expecting a treat. Disappointed was I. For a so called “monster movie” – not scary at all. Maybe a slight jump one time, but even that was from spilling beer on myself. The story centers on a screwball family’s search for their youngest child. This little girl was taken by a mutated monster that came out of the Han River. The monster makes his full appearance about 6 minutes in – no suspense is built at all. The scary/monster aspect did not work for me to say the least. I did find some of the humor used to be enjoyable, but overall this is a movie I would not recommend.

“Kick it on Floor”

Trust The Man

Trust The Man: A romantic comedy starring David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Bill Crudup. There are a lot of things wrong with this movie – it suffers greatly in the “movie convenience” factor. Two of the characters are siblings, 2 of them are best friends, all of them have jobs as either writers or actors etc. The story is nothing of note either….and it has a terrible “Hollywood, romantic comedy ending”. However, I still found this enjoyable. I really loved the odd comedy, most of which comes out of nowhere and has zero relevance to the plot. The movie got a few good laughs out of me and that is enough to give it a slight recommend.

“Pick it Up”

Zodiac DVD review

Zodiac: David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven) brings us the true story of the zodiac killer. The zodiac was a serial killer in the San Francisco area in the late 60’s and early 70’s. He was notorious for writing notes to newspaper reporters on what he had done, what he was going to do, or demanding them to print codes of his in the paper. The story focuses on the cop assigned to the case (Mark Ruffalo), the lead reporter covering the investigations (Robert Downing Jr.), and a cartoonist who becomes infatuated with the killings (Jake Gyllenhaal). The movie does so much right – on top of the slight scariness that comes with a serial killer movie, we also get to see the affect an unsolved crime has on the people trying to solve it. I would not say this film is of the caliber of Seven and Fight Club, but still a movie I would suggest checking out.

“Pick it Up”

The Dead Girl

The Dead Girl: Five different stories are shown, all of them revolving around the same crime. The interesting thing about this feature is that none of the stories focus on the crime actually taking place. The movie instead shows the painful affect a crime of this nature has on people related to both the victim and the killer. Excellent performances are a plenty and are supplied by the likes of Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, Rose Byrne, and Giovanni Ribisi. The movie is mainly a deep drama, but one of the story lines does have some good creepiness going on. This small film was not given enough attention during its theatrical run, so I hope it finds an audience on DVD – because I really liked this rental!!!

“Pick it Up”

Jesus Camp DVD Review

Jesus Camp: A documentary about evangelical Christians……what could be more entertaining?. The films follows a handful of kids as they go to these Christian summer camps to get, what I would consider, an extreme lesson in evangelical Christianity. What I like most about the movie was how the filmmakers did not go out of their way to take a side. The film just shows clips from inside the camp and lets the viewer decide what to think. We see kid after kid driven to tears – asking for forgiveness for sins. I found the material shocking and down right scary. A very interesting watch!

“Pick it Up”

The Good German

The Good German: Set in Berlin in post-WWII this Film Noir is presented in Black & White. George Clooney stars as a journalist who arrives back in Berlin only to bump into an old love (played by Cate Blanchett). He also finds himself in the middle of a crime investigation that has a much deeper connotation than what appears on the surface. Some of the film’s imagery will remind you of Casablanca, while some of its themes will remind you of Chinatown. I found this to be an entertaining movie that had some good “build up” going on. However the ending let me down a little, even still I give it a …….
“Pick it Up”