Scream 4

I think we all know by now that I am a huge fan of the original Scream trilogy. Scream 4, or Scre4m as the opening titles spell it, is probably the movie I was most looking forward to seeing in the first half of this year. You know, pre Oscar buzz movies, and pre-summer blockbusters, Scream 4 was it for me. I went in to it fully expecting it to be as awesome as the 7th grade version of me would expect. Sure, there was the slight feeling that it might disappoint me but I tried to ignore it. And guess what? Scream 4 lived up to my every expectation! I simply loved it.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and say that Scream 4 is some Oscar worthy, prestigious, amazingly well written and directed, fantastic film. It's none of those things. But if you are a fan of the original trilogy, I honestly can't see how you would be disappointed! It's got everything you've come to expect from a Scream movie: a great opening sequence where big-named stars bite the dust (and, seriously, let me tell you, the opening sequence of Scream 4 was by far my favorite part of the film, so clever, so well done, maybe even the best opening sequence of the franchise), tongue in cheek humor, great death scenes, some trapped in a car while trying to get away from Ghostface, and even the necessary rules for surviving a remake (Rule number one: "Don't fuck with the original."

So, anyway, it's ten years later and heroine extraordinaire Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has returned to her hometown of Woodsboro, California to promote her self help book entitled Out of Darkness. The only other survivors of the trilogy bloodbath, Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale (Coureteny Cox) are now married and living semi-happily. Dewey is the new chief of police and Gale is trying her hand at writing fiction. But guess what guys? The engine on Sydney's car hasn't even cooled and there are a pair of murders, with two local girls getting stabbed to death. [This all, of course, happens after the AMAZING opening sequence. Not even kidding. That shit is crazy good.] Anyway, while Sydney is at a book reading in town, Dewey receives a phone call that leads him to the trunk of her rental car and a whole bunch of Ghostface memorabilia is there, along with lots of blood. Suddenly, Sydney can't leave town even if she wanted to. She gets to hole up with her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), who is the brand new fresh-faced ingenue of the film. Soon, Ghostface is targeting Jill and her friends, sassy Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), film nerds Charlie (Rory Culkin) and Robbie (Erik Knudsen), sexy Olivia (Marielle Jaffe) and Jill's jerk ex-boyfriend Trevor (Nico Tortorella). Cat and mouse, whodunit, murdering rampages ensue.

Director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Wiliamson have truly done it again. No matter how indulgent the movie is at times (and it surely knows how clever it is being sometimes), this is still a fun slasher movie. It's undoubtedly the most fun I had at the movies in 2011. Sure, a lot of it is predictable but any horror movie fan will love how well this movie is executed. This isn't some bad sequel or B-movie. This a damn well done horror sequel, something that truly belongs being a part of the great Scream franchise. As I said earlier, the opening sequence is goddamn perfect as far as I'm concerned. It's smart and clever and serves as a great reintroduction to the films. While some of the film lags in the middle, it is completely redeemed by a strong, really great, risky ending (although, I would have enjoyed it a tad bit more had it ended five minutes earlier). The only thing really lacking for me was somethng that I really wanted to happen that didn't. SPOILER ALERT - I so wanted one of the original actors to bite the dust (just not Courteney Cox!), but they all survived to Scream another day.

The acting is pretty great all around. Of course, you would expect nothing less from Scream veterans Campbell, Cox and Arquette. While the first three films belonged totally to Campbell and her fine nuanced and fragile performance as Sydney, Cox sort of steals the show here as the ever-sassy, ever-ruthless Gale Weathers Riley. There are some great newcomers to the franchise as well with particularly strong performances from Roberts, Culken, Panettiere, and Alison Brie, as Sydney's money hungry editor. Also, kudos to Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell for all but stealing the show with their small amount of screentime.

All in all, the movie isn't perfect, and it's definitely not going to win any Oscars anytime soon. However, it's a great reboot, and a perfect next installment, for the franchise of Scream. Here's hoping for more smart, clever, witty, scary Scream movies in the future.

Grade: B

Insidious

At first, I had little to no interest in seeing this film. The fact that it was written and directed by the people responsible for most of the Saw franchise, and produced by the guy responsible for Paranormal Activity was certainly NOT a selling point for me. In fact, it was a total turn off. As you may know, my predilection in horror movies is NOT the supernatural. I have no interest in ghosts and haunted houses and demons and whatever else because, you know what, prove to me that those exist first! No, you know what does exist? Crazy psychopaths with knives who break into your house in the middle of the night and hack you and your family into a million pieces. That shit happens! That shit is scary! Ghosts aren't scary to me in the least. So my interest in Insidious was pretty non-existant. Of course, I would check it out on DVD, probably hate it, whatever. But then I started reading the reviews. Reputable critics giving it grades like "A-" and calling it the scariest movie since Poltergeist. Tons of really great, really strong reviews. So I decided to give in and go see it. All I can say is, thank goodness I had a free movie ticket because I was right and you all were wrong. Insidious is, indeed, insidious.

Insidious stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne as a couple with three children who recently moved into a brand new house in some picturesque suburb somewhere. Soon after they move in, their oldest son falls into a sort of coma that the doctors can't explain. Then "scary" stuff starts to happen and mom Renee (Byrne, although Renee is spelled in the most stupid way possible and I refuse to accept it as an actual spelling for the name) starts to freak out. She hears scary noises and sees scary things. Ooooh! So scary. Anyway, hottie dad Josh (Wilson) believes her craziness and the family leaves their gorgeous suburban house and moves to a different, uglier house. But guess what? The ghosts and goblins and general cliched creepiness follows them. Barbara Hershey shows up for some unknown reason to be wasted in a terrible role and introduces them to some creepy lady (Lin Shaye) who informs them that the house isn't haunted, but their son is. THEN the movie gets really stupid, involving some strange gas mask apparatus and astral-projection and a whole bunch of other really stupid stuff. Blah, blah, blah, twist ending you saw coming a mile away.

I guess it's pretty plain to see that not only did I not like Insidious, but also, in fact, I hated it. There was absolutely nothing I could say about it that was positive except - I liked the opening credits! They were creepy and old school and enjoyable. It was pretty much all down hill from there. The performances by Wilson and Byrne, two actors who I like, were fine, I guess. Too bad they are stuck in a really terrible movie. Any sort of creepiness that builds up in the first half (and I'm saying that as a sort of objective point of view because where other people might find it "creepy" and "scary", I found it boring and dumb) gets completely ruined by a far-flung ridiculous second half. The fact that people genuinely find this movie good and scary makes me realize why there is really no hope for the future of the horror movie genre. I really hope Scream 4, a SLASHER movie about a crazy MAN who wears a mask and kills people for really no reason, is a huge success and ushers in a change. I can't handle all this supernatural crap that people find scary these days. It just doesn't do it for me, man. Anyway, I liked it better when it was called Poltergeist.

Grade: D-

Hanna

I probably couldn't have been more excited about seeing Hanna. I thought the trailer looked bad ass and exciting and action packed and fun! Plus, it's directed by Joe Wright, the guy behind the superb and wonderful Atonement (and, also, the completely underwhelming The Soloist, so, really, I should have known). I wasn't in any way let down by the performances or the direction, however, the movie as a whole was a bit disappointing.

Hanna is the story of a young girl (Saoirse Ronan, more bad ass than all of the Sucker Punch girls combined) who is raised by her father (Eric Bana) in the middle of nowhere. He has trained her since childhood to fight, hunt, and survive. The two hide out in a tiny log cabin in the arctic forest, in hiding from a shady government official named Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Once Hanna is ready, all she has to do is press a button and Marissa's goons will come and find her. Daddy disappears after they promise to meet in Berlin and Hanna is captured. After she kills a Marissa clone and escapes, Hanna must run for her life from a bunch of men trying to kill her, make peace with the truths she learns about her past, learn about all the things her daddy never taught her about (like boys and electricity), and ultimately have it out with Marissa in the big climax.

Let's talk positives first: the direction from Joe Wright is georgeous, as always. The opening shot especially is impressive. Although Wright has indeed made a dull movie, he has never made an ugly movie. Although this is an action movie, Wright takes his time and delivers some beautiful moments throughout the film. Then there is the frenetic, awesome soundtrack courtesy of The Chemical Brothers which will surely infect your brain and stay in your head for hours afterwards. And finally, the performances are just top notch. Bana is fine as Hanna's ex-government official father although he doesn't really have the biggest role here. Blanchett is just perfect as the red headed, ruthless villianous who can sweet talk you and then shot you in the head. She is extraordinary, like she always is. However, it's Ronan that is the revelation here. She was exceptional in Atonement but this movie proves that she is going to be a big star someday soon. If she continues to pick great roles, she may just grow up to be her generation's version of Meryl Streep, since she's surely got the chops for it. She is adorable and vulnerable as a little girl who is learning about the world around her - electricity, swimming pools, boys, showers. But she is also a bad ass action star. She fights, beats up boys and makes it all so much more realistic than that awful Sucker Punch movie. And she doesn't even have to wear a little school girls outfit to look damn cool kicking so much ass. She's sort of like Natalie Portman's Mathilda from The Professional meets a baby version of Uma Thurman's The Bride from Kill Bill. She's just sensational and impressive and gives the first truly great performance of the year.

So, while the direction, performances and music is all great, I can't say the same for the movie. There are portions of the movie that are damn good. In fact, these specific moments are so, so, so very good that it sort of makes the rest of the movie seem that much worse. For every exciting action scene or intense conversation, there is a damn boring drawn out portion of the film that is just plain unnecessary. The movie is less than two hours long but it feels like it takes forever, so I guess, chalk that up to bad editing. For every moment threatening to overflow with suspense, there are just as many, if not more, moments that I was bored out of my mind. There is also a lot of really weird imagery and moments throw in the mix, but for what? None of it served a purpose. This isn't some quirky indie film! It's a mainstream action movie. I appreciate the artistry that Wright offers but it really doesn't have a place here. Then there's the violence, or rather, lack there of. I know why studios want to make PG13 rated movies, believe me I do (better box office!), but I couldn't help but look at some of the moments in this movie and think about how amazing and cool they could have been if the movie would have had an R rating. I'm not all about glorifying violence, but if you are trying to make a super cool movie about a teenage assasin, then you should just go for it, you know? Wright is an amazing director, but I couldn't help but think this would have been a better movie in Tarantino's hands.

Grade: C+

The Scream Trilogy

A week from tomorrow is a very glorious day indeed: the release of Scream 4! I know I'm probably more excited than I should be about it, but the fact of the matter is, I grew up with the original Scream trilogy. So, in order to prepare myself for the fourth installation, I rewatched the first three and will now talk about how awesome they are. Is a SPOILER WARNING relevant if something is more than a decade old???

Scream (1996)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber
So, this is where it all began. A movie-loving masked murderer begins targeting teenagers (and an ill-fated principal) as a sort of psychotic craze. But is it? Nope, turns out there is a back story involving heroine Sydney (Campbell) and her mother Maureen who has been dead for - oh, what? - just about exactly one year. Scream's plot isn't revolutionary but this smart as hell, quick plotted, witty film revitalized the slasher genre. With it's tongue in cheek humor and it's rules for survival, it mocked the films that came before, while also paying homage to them, while also breathing life back into a genre that was long dead. And, man, was it brilliant, thanks in part to director Craven's knowledge of directing horror films, and writer Williamson's super smart, talky, pop culture laden script. Scream pays homage in the most subtle ways: Billy's last name is Loomis much like characters in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Psycho, Barrymore (a HUGE star who got top billing) bites the dust before the credits a la Janet Leigh in Psycho. It also rewrites the rules: One of the rules Randy mentions is that virgins are the only ones who can outsmart the killer. However, later in the film Sydney loses her v-card and still manages to survive the big third act bloodbath. The best tongue in cheek moment comes courtesy of Sydney who is on the phone with the killer talking about why she hates horror movies, saying the victims are "always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door," and then moments later does just that. Fifteen years later, the movie is only slightly dated. I mean, they sure make a big fuss about a teenage boy having a "cellular telephone" but other than that it still seems as hip as it did back then. All in all, the first scream was just fantastic in every way, shape and form.
Grade: A

Scream 2 (1997)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber, Jada Pinkett Smith, Omar Epps, Elise Neal, Jerry O'Connell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Rebecca Gayheart, Portia de Rossi
One year later in real life but two years later in movie life, Scream 2 picks up with Sydney (Campbell) and Randy (Kennedy) both attending Windsor College. A movie called STAB, based on the story of their life, has just hit theaters. In the pre-credits death scene, Pinkett Smith and Epps bite the dust while watching a preview in a theater. Of course, Gale Weathers (Cox) smells a story and shows up and it seems the deaths are happening all over again. And, of course, there are rules to sequels as well. The death scenes are bigger and more elaborate, for one and that is definitely the case here. There is also a healthy debate during the film about the fact that sequels are never, ever better than the original. And that's the case here as well, but not by much. Scream 2 is truly a great follow up to the first. It's still got the tongue in cheek wit while also managing to be genuinely frightening and intense. And it's also got a surprising amount of heart: try not to get a little misty eyed when our poor, sweet, dorky Randy gets murdered.
Grade: A-

Scream 3 (2000)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Liev Schreiber, Kelly Rutherford, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley, Lance Henriksen, Deon Richmond, Jenny McCarthy, Emily Mortimer, Parker Posey, and a special appearance by Jamie Kennedy just to appease those of us who were completely tramuatized by his death in Scream 2
So, it's a few years later. Sydney is living the life of a hermit, shacked up in an extravagent secluded house, working from home as a crisis counselor, seemingly only having contact with her father and her dog. In Hollywood, Sunrise Studios is making Stab 3. Liev Schreiber's love-to-hate-him character Cotton Weary has bitten the dust, pre-opening credits style. But the plot thickens: the killer left a picture at the death scene and that picture just happens to be of Sydney's long dead mom back when she was young and fresh-faced. Gale smells a juicy story and shows up to poke around in Hollywood. I remember loving all the Scream movies equally, but upon rewatching them, I will quickly admit that Scream 3 doesn't live up to the other two, not one bit. For starters, gone is Kevin Williamson's witty, smart script which is replaced by dialogue that is just trying way too damn hard. The only character who gets good lines is Parker Posey's hilarious actress Jennifer who is playing Gale Weathers. Posey is so much better than her material and she makes every scene a little bit better. She has some particularly hilarious scenes with Cox near the middle of the film that almost make everything that's wrong with this movie a little bit better. And what's wrong with it, per se? Besides sloppy, lazy writing, it calls in question everything that had happened in the first two (which is apparently a rule of the trilogy) but in the most stupid way possible. Also, there are ongoing scenes with Sydney's dead mother appearing to her and talking to her that are just plain dumb. So, I will admit it, the Scream trilogy is not perfect. Scream 3 is not nearly as good as the first two, but I still love it. It's sort of like the Halloween series for me. Everyone knows Halloween 4 and 5 are crap but I love them anyway. In fact, Halloween 4 is probably my second favorite of the series even though it's just plain bad.
Grade: C+

Source Code

I can't possibly say enough good things about director Duncan Jones' (son of David Bowie) directorial debut, 2009's Moon. Moon was stellar is so many ways. It had an amazing script. It was directed beautifully. It had a balls to the wall, fearless, tour de force performance from Sam Rockwell. Moon was just amazing. So, I guess I had high expectations for Source Code, Jones' sophomore effort. But guess what? Source Code does NOT disappoint! Sure, it has a few problems and I'll nitpick about them in a minute. But, overall, Source Code is a sharp, smart thriller with enough suspense and twists and turns to fulfill you.

The plot is a little hard to explain. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as an army helicopter pilot who suddenly finds himself on a daring new mission: he gets to inhabit the body of another man named Sean, who is a passenger on a commuter train that was bombed outside of Chicago. This new revolutionary program called the Source Code was invented by a slightly crazy scientist (Jeffrey Wright) and is initiated by a mysterious captain named Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). The catch is, he can only inhabit the body for 8 minutes at a time, so he must go from the body to a holding cell, back and forth, until he can successfully find the bomber, who is planning to set off a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago sometime in the very near future. While on the train, "Sean" interacts with a whole slew of passengers, including the sweet and beautiful Christina (Michelle Monaghan), who he decides he is going to save from the bomb, even though Goodwin tells him that it is impossible. Got it? Well, like I said, it's hard to explain, but believe me, it is EXCITING!

Source Code is for sure an edge of your seat thriller. The plot is confusing, sure, but it is also ridiculously smart (just like Moon). If you like your movies to be entertaining AND smart, then Source Code is definitely right up your alley. Plus, there is enough humor throughout the movie to keep the mood light. Sure, saving the world is serious business, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun! I also quite enjoyed the chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Monaghan. Source Code is a perfect sci-fi romance and the leads have incredible chemistry. Going into the movie, I thought the romance element would play off as cheesy and forced, but it doesn't at all, growing organically and believably. Jones' direction is superb as well. The script is also fantastic. This isn't your typical stock Hollywood paint-by-numbers thriller. It's different and it's edgy.

My main problem is with the performances. Don't get me wrong, the principal cast does a fantastic job in the movie. Gyllenhaal manages to carry the movie on his shoulders perfectly, something I wasn't sure he could do. Monaghan is delightful and sweet. Farmiga is great as a stoic captain who we get to know more about as the movie goes on. Wright also does a solid job with a small role. However, none of them stand out the way Rockwell's performance did in Moon. I know it's not fair to combine the two, since the only thing they have in common is their director, but after Moon, I couldn't help but think of Jones as someone who is capable of getting a really great, jaw-dropping AMAZING performance from an actor. I also know Rockwell can act circles around all of the actors in this particular movie, but that doesn't mean I wasn't slightly disappointed that there wasn't really a performance that I want to talk about for days. I'd rather focus on how amazing the movie is rather than the work of a particular actor, and that is odd for me. Another of my major problems is the ending. It leaves you with more questions than answers (which I actually don't mind. Afterall, I did watch Lost for six seasons). However, I feel like they went a little out of their way to tack on the "happily ever after" / "silver lining" ending. I prefer my movies with a little more doom and gloom, thankyouverymuch.

Still, Jones is surely a director to watch, proving that his first project wasn't just a fluke. He managed to helm yet another fantastic sci-fi thriller. Source Code is, by far, the best movie of 2011, so far. It is poised to become a cult hit, that's for sure. It's definitely a good movie, and with a different, re-worked ending, it could ahve been a great one.

Grade: B