The Babadook: REVIEW

 
2014 has been a pretty weak year for horror films. Mainly, there have been a lot of sequels, a crapton of found footage films trying to revamp the genre, and some miscellaneous gems that really haven't shined bright enough to really be noticeable. The year is almost over, but the wait has been worth it with The Babadook.


The Babadook is about Amelia, a single mother, taking care of her only child Samuel. Samuel's father died in a car accident on the way to the hospital when Sam was born. Its almost seven years later and Amelia still has not moved on. She has the basement locked with her husband's things and has removed all traces of him from the house.


She is also not getting any sleep with her son who acts out in strange ways. He creates weapons, because he says there is a monster in the house and he has to make them so they don't die. In school, he brings those weapons and acts out. He is becoming an extremely unruly child, and Amelia can barely stand him. When at a birthday party, he pushes his cousin out of a treehouse and gives her a bloody nose, Amelia keeps him home for two weeks.


During that time that is when things start to unravel.  Sam finds a children's pop-up book called The Babadook. Inside its depicts a creepy figure stalking a child that looks similar to Samuel. Amelia takes the book away and soon the book appears again. She rips it up and throws it in the trash. The book appears on her doorstep tape back together. This time there are more pages inside, showing Amelia, killing her dog, son, and then finally herself. She then burns the book. After the book is burned that is when stuff starts to happen. The Babadook appears to her and possesses her. Her son becomes the protagonist and tries to save himself from his mother and help her break free.


A lot of horror films either try to push the envelope or revamp a certain sub-genre, but what makes The Babadook different is that is doesn't try to do either of those things. It is just a damn good horror movie. The revealing of The Babadook is done is a perfect way. Its is rarely seen, but when it is, its movements are spectacularly creepy. The Babadook does what horror movies recently have forgotten to do which is have a character deal with a psychological problem. Horror is not made to just have hollow scares, horror should deal with mental anguish that can be tragically portrayed on screen. The Babadook has a rich female character and one of the best child actors that I have seen in awhile. See The Babadook, but you might only want to see it once. I give The Babadook 5 child-made weapons out of 5.
 

December Movie List

December 12th:

Exodus: Gods and Kings DANA'S TOP PICK




Exodus is the biblical tale of Moses, Christian Bale (The Dark Knight), leading an uprising against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby), by setting hundreds of thousands of slaves free. Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Robin Hood) looks to add his own epic CGI vision to film combined with great actors while also not having it be as long as the five hour Charleston Heston event that seems to take over the entire Easter weekend on ABC. Though it still is 2 and a half hours long so time your piss breaks wisely. We've already got the reviews in for it which you can check out HERE and HERE.

---

Top Five





Written, directed, and staring Chris Rock as a high profile comedian who wants to become a serious actor because he doesn't feel funny anymore. After that Saturday Night Live performance from last month, we can agree with that.

---

December 17th:

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies  MANCHILD TOP PICK



The finale of The Hobbit trilogy and probably the last movie in a long while to deal with Middle Earth is here! Bilbo, Martin Freeman (Sherlock), and the dwarves have successfully entered the mountain and found the Arkenstone they set out on their quest for. There's just one problem, Smaug, the giant scary possibly schizophrenic dragon is loose and about to put a beating on the river city of Dale. Oh, and there's 7 armies all headed their way for a big ass battle royale for the fate of Middle Earth. It's going to be an awesome and epic conclusion to series for any LotR fan. If you haven't seen the previous two movies yet, you really should watch those first before this so you're not asking the person next to you "Who's that?" every five minutes.

---

December 19th:

Annie






A foster child is taken in by a business tycoon and Mayoral candidate, Jamie Foxx, for NYC.
This is pretty much the same Annie movie as all the other ones, just with some hip-hop, and that really crazy Italian(NSFW) from Boardwalk Empire.

---

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb





In this final film from the Night at the Museum series, Ben Stiller has to travel the globe uniting different museum characters before the magic is gone forever. Sadly fitting since this is one of Robin Williams' final movies.

---

The Gambler




Marky Mark is in some real deep shit in this remake about a college literature professor who's high stakes gambling gets him in debt with two different loan sharks. They pretty much had me at John Goodman shaving his head menacingly.

---

Mr. Turner (Limited)


Wormtail is looking very harumph as the great British painter J.M.W. Turner going through the last quarter of his life. For any indie lovers out there, this is a rare time where watching paint dry might actually be enjoyable.

---

December 26th:

Into the Woods



This isn't your average fairy tale musical. Sure it's got Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and a beanstalk, Johnny Depp being all Johnny Depp as the wolf. and Meryl Streep as a boss ass witch, But it's also got adultery, backstabbing, Anna Kendrick, and MURDER all in a PGish cinematic cocktail.

---

Unbroken



Here's the true story of Louis Zamperini, a man who became an Olympic runner, who then joined the armed forces during World War II, who's plane was then shot down in the pacific, who then had to survive adrift for like two weeks, who was then rescued... by the Japanese and placed in a POW camp. Here's the even crazier thing, he only just passed away this summer at the age of 97. Needless to say, this guy's life is more powerful than most Hollywood scripts. Add that with this being Maleficent's second directorial job and you have a lot of potential going into theaters this Christmas.

---

The Interview



You know those guys from Pineapple Express? Well they're going to assassinate the leader of North Korea. Seth Rogen and James Franco play a producer and host of a huge world wide talk show. Turns out that Kim Jong-un is a big fan and wants to be interviewed by them. That's when the C.I.A steps in and asks if they could you know... Kill him for them. Combine those to trying to do a covert assassination black ops with the fact that the Sony hacking is most likely happening because of this and we are intrigued.

---

Big Eyes



So this is a Tim Burton movie, but it's not a zany bonkers Johnny Depp acid trip that you would usually expect. It's actually a drama based on painter Margaret Keane who had an extremely successful career in the 50's and then had to fight her husband in court for credit for her own work. Amy Adams does incredible work on her films nowadays, so more interesting in seeing this for her and not Burton.

Birdman Review

There are some films for actors that help reinvigorate their career. For Michael Keaton, Birdman is that film, but it is just more than that. It shows what we have all been missing from Keaton. Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed up actor who decades ago was famous for playing a super hero. Now he is trying to reclaim whatever acclaim he had with a play he is acting and directing in.
 

During rehearsals, one of his main actors is doing horrible and Riggan just wants him gone. With a stroke of luck, a light falls on his head, knocking him out. Riggan needs a new actor and he finds one in  Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). During the first preview night, Mike has a scene in which he has to drink, and he drinks real liquor on stage. Making him stinking drunk and ruining the rest of the show for that preview night. Riggan has to deal with this new actor who is trying to outshine him, and try to create a new persona of himself that is not Birdman anymore.
 

Riggan's daughter played by the wonderful Emma Stone, is estranged from Riggan and during this play, is his assistant. His best friend and lawyer, Jake (Zach Galifinakis) helps keep him sane and his production afloat. Birdman is not only the character that he use to play. The Birdman persona is there always at the back of his mind. On screen, he literally is there. Birdman has become Riggan's conscious and tells him when he needs to stop acting a fool and when he isn't trying hard enough.


Birdman is one of those perfect films where the cast is perfect, and wonderfully made. The film is shot to look like is was done in one continuous take. The great thing about this film is the commentary it has about super hero movies. Both Keaton and Norton have both played superheroes, but Riggan has a small monologue where he makes fun of every actor that has played them.
 

Birdman is a film about mattering in an age where you might not matter anymore. It shows that sometimes to matter in today's world you have to do something crazy, stupid, and stupendous. Birdman is brash, bodacious, and brilliant. I give Birdman 5 levitating Michael Keatons out of 5.

 

Exodus: Gods and Kings Review #2

Exodus: Gods and Kings Review
By Erik Luchsinger

                                                                     www.screenrant.com


The story of Moses and the Exodus is known to many people for many different reasons. Many of us know it from the Dreamworks classic Prince of Egypt. Others know it from this book called The Bible, and still others know it as just another elaborate lie the Jewish World Order has spun to garner sympathy for itself and to hide the doings of our evil reptilian overlords. This year we have yet another retelling of the story, this time by Ridley Scott of Alien fame.

The first exposure any of us had to Exodus was undoubtedly the trailer, which was fucking sweet. Here's Christian Bale, some dudes in excessive eyeliner, and massive, sweeping shots of the plagues fucking up a beautifully rendered ancient Memphis. Every time I saw the trailer I would turn to my moviegoing buddy and quietly exclaim "fuck, that looks AWESOME!" And I was right, It did look awesome. Exodus has a very engaging visual style that's cleanly executed, resulting in a movie that doesn't hurt to look at. Unless, of course, it's meant to be. The landscapes are vast and breathtaking, the city of Memphis is glorious. The storms send a tingle up your spine. When the frogs and locusts and crocodiles descend upon Egypt the visuals evoke the kind of revulsion you may actually feel if being set upon by millions of frogs of locusts in the comfort of your massive royal palace. If you are looking to see the biblical plagues depicted in stunning 21st century graphics, go fucking see Exodus, because that's easily the best thing about the movie.

                                                                       Wrong Memphis
                                                                 www.memphismeansmusic.com


The acting was also good. Christian Bale does quite a good Moses, even if he is a bit more of an arrogant swordsman than the bible depicted him. Joel Edgerton's Ramses is also very entertaining. I don't know if it was the actor himself of the eyeliner, but Ramses displayed a lot of emotion. The scenes between the two were actually engaging and I wish more time had been spent on that.

Those good points aside, I really disliked Exodus for numerous reasons. If I had to put my complaints succinctly, I would say that this movie came off as a young Michael Bay's re-imagining of the tale. 

First, I will address the Michael bay comment. Exodus was thoroughly Hollywood-ized. Flashy visuals trumped nearly everything, including any kind of story or character development. Before you even have a chance to figure out which movie you're seeing we're thrust head first into a massive battle. It's relentlessly loud and everything is burning, screaming or gushing blood. Bale does some Batman-esque martial arts and sword fighting while chariots and horses fly everywhere. According to the story, the scene was necessary because of a prophecy (made 2 minutes prior in the preceding scene) about a hero saving someone and the savior becoming a leader. According to anyone who knows Hollywood, the scene was necessary because they thought our little brains might get hurt if we have to deal with something that doesn't involve burning death for more than a couple minutes at a time. I don't feel like the whole prophecy angle was necessary to set up some kind of schism between Moses and Ramses, as Moses being a secret Jew provides that schism well enough. Plus, such a pitifully small amount of time is spent exploring how Moses and Ramses feel about each other that any strife the prophecy brings to their relationship would be rendered irrelevant.

                   I'm not the opening sequence this movie wants, or deserves. But I'm the one it gets, regardless.
                                                                                                             www.schmoesknow.com


This brings me to my next point, which is the character development and general plot. Everyone already knows the story of the Exodus, which suggests to me that there is some fertile ground for re-thinking the smaller details while still leaving the major plot points unchanged. Scott and the rest of the Exodus team took this opportunity and squandered it by making Ramses and Moses generic badass sword guys and just blowing over every single other detail in the story. The relationship between Ramses and Moses is very simple and not at all interesting: they are loving brothers willing to die for each other, then Ramses finds out Moses is a Hebrew from a scheming Viceroy, then Ramses wants to kill Moses because he's angry. Very deep stuff. Oh, and that Viceroy I mentioned? He's like, a tertiary character at best, but he's far more developed than anyone else in the movie. He starts off as an overseer of slaves who's squandering money on his palace and has an active hate for Moses because of an inferiority complex. Later, he ends up being a trusted councilor of Ramses after tipping him off that Moses is a secret Jew. Even this slight arc is more interesting than Ramses and Moses, who are just left to be flat and boring for reasons I don't know or understand. Everyone else in the movie is glossed over entirely.

Speaking of which, Exodus has the tendency to spend a lot of time on shit that doesn't matter and no time at all on stuff that does. Moses spends all of 3 minutes tops making a perilous climb up a forbidden mountain in the middle of a rainstorm. This is a big deal in a religious sense (God forbids climbing this mountain in particular), it's where he first sees and speaks to God (a big deal for the plot) and it's just generally interesting because he's in danger and can't just stab the things that are threatening him. Meanwhile, we get 10 minutes of the same boring "charge" sequence as Ramses' army rides their horses into a tidal wave for no good reason. Moses meets, marries, has a kid, and then abandons them to help the Jews in Memphis in the span of 5 minutes. Meanwhile, the whole 10 commandments/golden calf thing is shoehorned in at the end. Exodus tried to tell way more of the story than it needed to. This resulted in important character development being eschewed for flashy battle scenes and half-assed plot peripherals, not to mention the movie being at least half an hour too long.

                                                                                  Fucking yawn, amirite?                                                                        www.ibtimes.co.uk


Overall, I really didn't enjoy Exodus. It was exceptionally long winded and boring. It didn't have any sense of what parts to give time to, which parts to be short about, and which points to completely cut from the movie (re first battle scene, golden calf incident). The characters are so hard to care about that watching them charge into battle under a thousand-foot tidal wave could barely convince me to keep my eyes open.While the visuals were stunning and the acting was good, the rest of the movie lacked so significantly that I don't ever want to see this movie again. With the notable exception of the plague scenes, Exodus: Gods and Kings was pretty forgettable and a real snoozer. I give it 2/5 bible stories that are actually interesting if they aren't ruined by yawn-inducing writing and Hollywood-ized battle sequences. Go see it if you wanna see crocodiles turn a river to blood in epic CGI glory or if you're trying to go to sleep. Otherwise, go see something else. Or just take a nap.

Exodus: Gods and Kings REVIEW

I should preface this review with something...I love Ridley Scott. Ever since his feature length directorial debut in 1977 with The Duellists, Scott has been consistently releasing incredible, dramatic action flicks. Some of his best and most popular works include Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator (my favorite!), American Gangster, and Prometheus. He has three best director Oscar nominations for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. All I'm trying to say is, this dude is talented as shit and prolific as hell. He makes damn good movies and I've been looking forward to Exodus: Gods and Kings for months. On top of all that, I also really like the film's lead, Christian Bale. He's a talented actor, an Oscar winner (The Fighter), my favorite Batman, and I typically enjoy the movies he works on. So, it's safe to say my expectations for this film were higher than Snoop Dogg at a Willie Nelson concert.

He's the hero Canaan deserves,
but not the one it needs right now.

With all that being said...I was not disappointed. In addition to another great performance from Christian Bale, the film featured Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, and everyone's favorite meth-head, Aaron Paul.  The story began with Moses and Ramses as adults, the tale of baby Moses in a basket floating down the river was skipped right over (but mentioned later). Religious folks might not be too fond of this film since Scott took a few creative liberties with the Biblical tale. Moses first spoke to God after hitting his head and his wife was convinced that he was hallucinating. The plagues and the parting of the Red Sea were caused by events that could be explained; there weren't any miracles. The film is basically an agnostic version of The Exodus. As expected, the production design was incredible. Many film critics are are ranting about the high number of white people in Egypt and the inconsistencies between the accents that many of the actors used. The film's score from composer Alberto Iglesias  wasn't quite as epic or powerful as it should have been. Hans Zimmer (who composed the score for Gladiator) must have been busy with Interstellar. So, if I had to pick three things I didn't like about the film, those would be it.

Before the credits rolled, there was a dedication to director Tony Scott (best known for Top Gun), Ridley Scott's younger brother who committed suicide in 2012.

4/5: Great Scott! Another fantastic flick from Ridley!
(But keep in mind, I'm biased...)