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The Lovely Bones

Matthew Quinto — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:53:23 +0000

This movie was based on a supposedly true story of a young girl who was raped and killed; she haunted her family and her ghost killed the rapist. It was a positively, utterly, terrible movie. It starts off with a young girl named Susie and one day a rapist gets her into a basement and rapes and kills her. What the movie tends to focus on is this horror/fantasy type of look. After she dies her ghost haunts her family and her mother and father start to see glimpses of her in their daily lives. Her mother is tormented to the point where she leaves her family and gets a job in a different city away from her young children to escape her pain. Her sister and father investigate the rapist’s house and find evidence which incriminates him for his wrong doings, but he gets away and the ghost kills him. There is no moral whatsoever in this story. And the ghost named Susie seems to be trapped in a reality which is painful/Imaginatively creative. Sometimes she sees her killer and has nightmarish scenarios of him, and other times she will be in her happy place surrounded by flowers and rainbows. It really makes no sense. The movie never says wether she goes to heaven or hell, it just says she’s in a place stuck in between. This is a story of a girl who was beginning to get her life in order and then had it stripped away by this rapist. There is no point to this story, and even as a horror movie it seems to lack an ultimatum. I was actually forced to go to this movie, it didn’t seem interesting and it did disappoint. To be fair it was somewhat entertaining, just to see what happens at the end. The characters were alright in this movie, they played their individual parts okay especially the rapist. But this movie didn’t really know what it was. A Thriller? A Horror? a Sci-fi? What was the point? These questions were not answered in the end, and this movie could have used a lot of work. It’s definitely not worth paying for, not even renting if your bored.

The Book Of Eli

Matthew Quinto — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:09:06 +0000

This movie really captured me in so many ways. When I went to go watch the movie I expected to see another normal action movie, although I liked the idea of an post-apocalyptic world, it just seemed like another one of those end of the world scenarios. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Now one of the things I liked best was the landscape, the directors really captured what it would have been like in a world torn by war. There were broken down houses, people struggling for food, raiders and thieves at every turn. If there’s one thing I like about a movie, it’s how realistic it is. The special effects were almost non-existent, apart from a few big explosions don’t expect the sky to be falling. Denzel Washington and the other actors did a great job portraying each of their individual roles. There was no extra guy who didn’t need to be there. The overall plot is pretty interesting, it’s basically about a man named Eli and he has the last bible on earth so he’s trying to get it somewhere safely through this post-apocalyptic world. Even though some parts were pretty gruesome, it all goes along with the effect of the movie. What I find amazing is in this movie there was a lot of praying, most of the audience in the theater shifted uncomfortably in their seats but I think it was a very bold thing to do, nowadays you don’t see lots of movies that have a clear message or something they firmly believe in, it’s just there to entertain you. The directors of this movie weren’t afraid to make a great movie and base it on something they actually believe in. There is a strong hint that God has a big part to play in this movie. If you enjoy some epic battle scenes, a good mystery storyline, and some realism then I recommend you watch this movie.

Sherlock Holmes

Kevin Kreger — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:00:21 +0000

The World’s Greatest Detective is a title that many sleuths throughout storybook history have laid claim to. But few have ever reached the level epic-ness that is Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie herself (another well known English Mystery writer) read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved mysteries extensively as a teen. The character Sherlock Holmes is well known for his use of logic, and more particularly the use of deductive reasoning. However very few young mystery readers are interested simply, in logic, and reasoning. So “logically” there must be more to Sherlock Holmes.

SHERLOCK HOLMES, premiered in theatres Christmas 2009. Many classical Sherlock Holmes lovers were turned off by the movie’s action movie style, akin to the Bourn spy films. Robert Downey Jr. portrays a Holmes with an air for the theatrical. But while this is unexpected of a Sherlock Holmes movie, die hard fans of this beloved sleuth will note that it is completely true to the books. However infrequent, Holmes Does display talents as a marksman, a specialist at close combat, and very often shows his skills as a scientist. So while the new movie differs dramatically from the films made in the early 1900s, it seems to be more accurate, and more interesting.

Robert Downey Jr. brings a certain “character” to the role of Sherlock Holmes that few others could. Not only a gifted actor, he has also dealt with the problems of addiction that Holmes is constantly, “battling” (in the film Watson catches Holmes drinking from a bottle of meds used for eye surgery). The relationship between Dr. Watson, (played by Jude Law) and Holmes in the movie is astounding. Watching Holmes and Watson interact, you would swear that they had been friends for ages. Not only this, but you find yourself longing for more dialog between the two of them when in the middle of fight and chase scenes (Interesting dialog is after all a rarity now a days).

Without giving away any of the key points in the plot, (to those of you who haven’t seen this masterpiece) the story is as follow. Lord Blackwood, begins the movie by attempting to remove a girls soul. After being thwarted by our beloved hero, he is hung, but not before giving Holmes a warning about coming events. He later rises from the grave, and begins to murder off multiple different people, claming to want to bring peace to a warring world, and to his grand empire. Of course, Holmes keeps a level head, and begins to work out the fine details of the multiple “supernatural” events. For those of you who are die hard fans, there are even a few guest characters from the books, including the illusive Irene Adler.

Sherlock Holmes is rated pg-13, for violence, (which it deserves) and other suspenseful goodies, as well as for partial nudity. For those of you opposed to such things, simply put you see a bit of a girls back and shoulders, and the bit from the add where Holmes is covered by a largish pillow. You are most likely going to see worse on any public street, theme park, and most definitely at pools and beaches.

As Holmes said in the movie, “You must be careful, or you will find yourself changing facts to fit theories rather then theories to fit facts.” The facts seem to support SHERLOCK HOLMES being one of the best movies of both 2009, and 2010. Don’t believe me? Watch the movie, READ THE BOOKS, and let the clues speak for themselves.