Change Your Image
okusandman
Reviews
Mothman (2000)
A lost film?
I found a reference to this movie while reading up on the Mothman, and found a death list of "Mothman Curse" victims. One of the names listed was Gene Andrusco.
"... Andrusco, 38, was found dead in The Green Room, his production studio in Huntington Beach, California, during the early morning of March 30, 2000, of a brain aneurysm or heart attack.
The only movie Gene Andrusco ever worked on was Douglas TenNapel's elusive independent film, Mothman (2000). Andrusco was the music editor, and performed some of the music, as a member of the Lost Dogs. The film was the first feature directed by Douglas TenNapel, produced by Mark Russell and Jay Holben, and executive produced by Martin Cohen of DreamWorks SKG. It was shot on location in Orange County, California, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on 35 mm in fifteen days throughout the month of December 1997. Jay Holben, the film's head cinematographer, would go on to do Minority Report; Mark Russell would produce Minority Report. A sneak preview of TenNapel's Mothman was held at San Diego Comic-Con on August 12, 1999, but, although the date of final release is listed as 2000, no one really knows whatever happened to the film, and TenNapel refuses to discuss it to this day."
Does anyone know anything else? I am assuming the people who voted for it confused it with one of the other Mothman movies.
Afterwards (2008)
A film about learning how to live
For a movie that concerned itself so much with death and dying, I was surprised at how much it said about life and learning how to live. Anyone who has been through a period of personal evolution will be able to relate to the main character as he reflects on the past events of his life and begins to change the dynamic of how he lives going forward. Those who haven't already reached these conclusions on their own will probably find it more difficult to understand.
I believe the reserved performance by the main character was a perfect representation of a man who is led by his career and by practical matters, and has shut himself off from his emotions and any real sense of living. Malkovich plays the somewhat creepy, mysterious benefactor of insights unseen (until the end of the movie) and delivers everything you'd expect from him in such a role. The female characters generate the same sympathy and compassion from the audience as they do from their male counterparts in the film, and that's why this movie works. If we are moved, we understand how they would be moved.
Preparing oneself to die by truly embracing life is not the theme I was expecting from this movie, but it's probably a better one than what I was looking for. I generally classify movies like this as "must see" films because anyone that hasn't figured something like this out on their own, really should. And the sooner, the better.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Why this film is so big
I wanted to mention why I think this film has been so profitable - and it's not because of the movie itself, which I didn't find to be that great or that scary. It's because of the marketing.
The extremely limited pre-Halloween release combined with the TV ads and internet trailers showing people watching the film and apparently having a jump-out-of-their seat fright-after-fright sort of time, created a demand that will probably go unchallenged in the future as moviegoers are unlikely to fall for the tactic a second time. But it was sheer brilliance to play on that human desire to want what we can't have, and their PR team deserves a few medals.
So that's why I saw it in spite of bad reviews. I wanted to judge for myself and at first I COULD NOT because it wasn't playing nearby, and so I spent a few weeks anxiously checking new releases hoping it would arrive in my area. Like many others - I got played.
Regarding reports of people running from the theater - they had motion sickness and were about to throw up. I initially thought reports of vomiting in the theater were from fear, because it's "that intense" but seriously people, it made me very queasy and I have never experienced motion sickness in a movie before. And yes, I saw Quarantine, Blair Witch, and Cloverfield. No sickness at all.
In a nutshell - brilliant marketing and the ability to make people puke doesn't make a movie great.
Up (2009)
Adult themes and PG rating (nothing is sacred)
I'm writing this primarily because of all of the reviews and comments that are playing down what is REALLY in this film with remarks like "the beginning is a little sad" or "it's PG because of some slightly intense chase scenes but it's nothing" - it's not fair to people who are doing their homework and trying to figure out if it's suitable for their young children. I've never before left anything close to a negative review about a Pixar movie. And even now this is not exactly negative, but it's truthful. I think they went a little too far with adult themes in this film, to the point that I will hesitate before rushing out to see another rated PG Pixar movie with my youngest child.
*****SPOILERS BEGIN HERE*****
The movie starts with the old man as a young boy. He meets a girl, they grow up, they get married. They aim to have children, they put a nursery together, and then - you see the wife sitting in a gynecologist office, and she is receiving news that she is infertile (some argue she had a miscarriage). She's crushed, and he promises her to fulfill their dream of going to South America, and they start a savings for this trip. Over the years, bad things happen, and each time they raid the trip fund. Carl finally realizes they are running out of time and buys the tickets in their old age. But Ellie ends up in the hospital and dies, never living her dream. Cut to now - Carl lives alone, and his home has become an island in a huge construction site. His view every day is dust and dirt, and construction workers and their vehicles. One day a vehicle bumps his mailbox and Carl bashes the worker who came to set it right in the head with his walker. Yes there is blood. He ends up in court, is declared a threat to society, and it is determined he will lose his home and be placed in a nursing home instead. By now I am thinking this isn't my idea of a good time, or a light afternoon with the kids. But I stayed, having faith it would turn around from there. The kid who ended up stowing away as Carl tried to escape his fate turns out to be a child of divorce who has been abandoned by his father. The two of them run into Carl and Ellie's childhood hero, and the hero turns out to be sadistic and deranged and the rest of the movie is spent with them being chased by this "hero" as he is trying to kill them. The one good dog Doug, spends the entire movie trying to get Carl to take to him. In spite of his harmless good nature, Doug is also targeted for abuse from Carl (much like the construction worker that was only trying to help). Carl growls at him to go away calling him a "bad dog" in a most cruel way, and kids cried as the dog slunk off with his tail between his legs. One little girl wailed But he's NOT a bad dog! He's a GOOD dog!! for ten minutes. The bird Carl and the boy were saving from the demented adventure guy is badly injured as she helps them escape, and she's a momma bird, and there are babies left (more abandonment) if Carl can't get them reunited. She ends up limping in a leg splint. The house itself is beat up, gutted, and almost burned down at one point, before it finally has to be sacrificed for the sake of saving everyone in the film. During the "happy" ending, you see the kid getting his promotion to senior scout, all the kids are standing there with dad, and he is there on stage alone. Granted Carl shows up to stand by the kid during this moment, but how many kids of divorced and absent parents do you think need this kick in the head to remind them of what they also don't have? Basically very little is left "safe" here - growing old, death, infertility, abandonment, broken promises, losing your home, court sentences, nursing homes, bad news from doctors, unfulfilled dreams, inability to get ahead, missing fathers, disillusionment, kids tied to chairs, birds with broken legs, babies left with no mother, mothers left without children. There are funny moments, and touching moments, but for me it wasn't enough to lift the heavy blanket of everything else that transpired. Of course, I had my little girl with me. I would look at her at times to see how she was taking the movie, and I'd see the bottom lip poking out, and she'd look up at me with those big soulful eyes, and suddenly I would want to wring the necks of the people who wrote certain plots of this film. But I never dreamed I would need to prescreen a movie from Pixar, and so I didn't, and this was where I went wrong. So in closing - how so many people are glossing over this stuff is beyond me. I've seen a few comments from people who feel like I do, so I know I'm not alone in my feelings that Pixar really went for the grown ups with this one. And plenty of adults are screaming about how much they like it, and I say of course they do, the film was written for them. But I think it came at too much of a cost in regards to the kids who have been cheated out of a movie that should have been geared more towards them. Someone speculated that maybe Pixar did it because wanted to be taken seriously- but as a result, I think they valued themselves more than they did the audience. And that's a sad thing to see.