Gone Girl (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie "Gone Girl" (USA, 2014)

1. One of the best movies of 2014, this multi-layered, wickedly brilliant film is a great adaptation of the 2012 novel.

2. It was directed by David Fincher. He collaborated with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again for the smoothly foreboding soundtrack. Fincher has developed a unique cinematic style, and this movie is a showcase of it.

3. The heart of the movie is a mystery - a wife disappears from her home on the morning of her anniversary. But not only do we not know who did it, we don’t even really know what happened.

4. The movie flips back and forth between the husband’s perspective and the wife’s, slowly unfolding its secrets like a black, poisonous flower.

5. Besides the core mystery, the movie is also a commentary on media hype, and trial by popularity. Nancy Grace probably wishes she could sue somebody for this movie.

6. Perhaps more chilling than the mystery is the depiction of what has to be the most dysfunctional marriage in cinematic history.

7. The movie is almost 3 hours long, but it doesn’t feel like it. The plot is tight - no scene is wasted. The dialogue is snappy and razor-sharp. The acting is awesome, from the main characters all the way down to minor roles.

8. Part of the reason the movie works so well is that the author of the book also wrote the screenplay. It’s set in Missouri and feels fairly authentic, probably because the author is from Kansas City.

9. A movie about passion, lies, obsession, the death of love, and living with sociopaths, this is a remarkable movie. It also reinforces my belief that I never ever want to get married.

Dracula Untold (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie "Dracula Untold" (USA, 2014)

1. This is yet another version of Dracula, that gets yet another origin story. But it’s pretty decent, if you know what you’re getting.

2.This is not your regular blood-sucking movie. This Dracula takes the semi-historical Vlad the Impaler route. Vlad is a prince who grew up captured and fighting for his enemies, the Turks.

3. Now back at home and ruling Transylvania, Vlad is threatened once again by the Turks. In order to save his people, he finds an ancient master vampire living in a Transylvanian mountain.

4. Vlad accepts a deal from the vampire, and begins his descent into darkness.

5. Vlad/Dracula is not evil in this movie, though he is an antihero. He is a physically and mentally traumatized man that feels a sociopathic duty to protect his people.

6. If you look at it right, this version of Dracula can be seen as a metaphor for war veterans with PTSD, trying (and ultimately failing) to keep their inner demons at bay.

7. A few characters from the original story make appearances in this movie; Mina appears briefly, and Vlad’s gypsy servant Shkelgim is clearly the Renfield character.

8. The movie’s atmosphere and cinematography are great. There are a few scenes that are absolutely, gorgeously gothic.

9. The movie touches on some deeper issues, but never explores them. So in the end, there’s nothing about this movie that makes it particularly memorable. You watch it, then you go on with your life. But as an entertaining dark fantasy adventure, this is worth a look.

Annabelle (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie "Annabelle" (USA, 2014)

1. The doll that opened the 2013 film “The Conjuring” gets its own origin story here. This movie starts with the same opening scene as “The Conjuring”, but then goes back to a year before, so we see how Annabelle came to be so scary.

2. It was directed by John Leonetti, who is mostly a cinematographer and TV director. From what I can tell, the only other movies he’s directed are “The Butterfly Effect 2” in 2006 and “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” in 1997.

3. The movie doesn’t suck, but you need to know what it is. The movie would have been better if it was actually about Annabelle. But the doll is hardly in it. When it is on screen, we usually just see the doll sitting there, not doing anything, while creepy music plays in the background.

4. It’s really about how a nice couple get attacked by Satanists, and then move to a different town. The blood of a Satanist falls on the doll, and then weird things start to happen.

5. When the nice couple meets a used bookstore owner - who also appears to be the only black person in town - you know this lady is going to have some spiritual knowledge of the situation.

6. There are some good moments, and some legitimate jump scares.

7. In the end, it’s really just another generic haunted-house-demon story, with the doll thrown in as a hook. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I was really disappointed with what Annabelle turned out to be.

8. Similar to “The Conjuring”, when you actually try to make sense of this story, you realize how dumb it is. The ending just doesn’t work.

9. I love scary doll movies. But this isn’t one. Yeah, the doll looks scary, but it doesn’t act scary. If you want a good scary doll movie, then watch "Dead Silence".

Detention (USA, 2011)

Nine Things About the Movie "Detention" (USA, 2011)

1. This cult classic independent comedy-horror-science fiction film mixes “The Breakfast Club” with “Mean Girls” and gore films. It’s a postmodern, post-ironic, pop-cultural mash-up about identity and fear of the future.

2. The plot (or really, plots) about high school, serial killers, and time travel, is extremely generic and overused. And everybody knows it. So it becomes fresh again. I mean, this movie deconstructs the deconstructors.

3. It’s kind of about a group of teenagers that wrestle with prom and popularity while a masked slasher from a popular horror movie series kills them. Plus it’s about time-travel, body-switching, and aliens.

4. The movie is a whirlwind of cultural references from the past thirty years. You could make a game out of just trying to catch them all - some are pretty obscure, and require you to have lived through the 80’s and 90’s. Some references are aimed directly at the Twitter generation.

5. It was directed by Joseph Kahn, who is already known in bad-movie circles for “Torque”. But don’t worry - he actually insults “Torque” in this movie, so it’s all good.

6. The cast is fairly unknown, except for Josh Hutcherson, who went from this movie to “The Hunger Games.” Oh, and Dane Cook plays the principal, if anybody still cares about him.

7. The fact that the movie makes several direct references to one of my favorite bad movies, the Patrick Swayze classic “Road House” (including the famous line about pain), just sealed the deal.

8. The pace and editing are very fast, and you hardly have time to catch a joke or a reference before it’s on to something else. It might be a little more gory than some people were expecting, too.

9. It’s really hard to make a movie that knows it’s making a movie about generic things, and yet stay fresh and sharp. This is not “Sharknado”. A meta-meta film with cheap but charming special effects, “Detention” hits so many notes that even if a few of them are out of tune, the whole thing is a crazy-ambitious symphony that is endearingly brilliant.

Tusk (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie "Tusk" (USA, 2014)

1. There’s really only one thing you need to know about this movie: It’s about a guy that kidnaps another guy and starts turning him into a walrus. If that sounds interesting to you, then you can stop reading this and go watch the movie. If it doesn’t sound interesting to you, then you can stop reading this and don’t go watch the movie.

2. This movie continues director Kevin Smith’s evolution away from the films that made him famous - like “Clerks” and “Mallrats”. He made his first real break from his past in 2011 with the minor masterpiece “Red State”, which most people didn’t even recognize was a Kevin Smith movie.

3. “Tusk” is the first of a trilogy about weird things that happen in Canada.

4. It’s based on a prank personal ad of a guy that wanted a roommate, as long as the roommate wore a walrus costume 2 hours a day. Even though the ad wasn’t real, Smith saw it and ran with the idea.

5. The acting is great. Justin Long owns his role as the dickhead podcaster that gets captured. Michael Parks (from “Red State”) is totally believable as the traumatized old man doomed to repeat the best and worst moment of his life. He manages to balance the insanity of the character with the wounded little boy that he really is.

6. Kevin Smith admits he made this movie while stoned.

7. Speaking of stoned, Smith helped to create a “Tusk”-brand strain of marijuana, which is meant to be enjoyed with the movie.

8. There is a special guest star in the movie that I totally didn’t recognize until I saw his name in the credits.

9. This is a hard-to-categorize film. It’s definitely horror, but it’s definitely comedy. And it’s most definitely macabre. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but it gets under your skin and makes you feel very strange. There are some amazing moments here. And if you look under the surface, you will find a very strong metaphor for the animal vs. human instincts in each of us.

Elephant (USA, 2003)

Nine Things About the Movie Elephant (USA, 2003)


1. This is Gus Van Sant’s minimalist interpretation of a school shooting. It was the second “school shooting” movie released after Columbine (that I know of). As an indie art film, this movie is decent. As a Van Sant film, it’s below average. As a depiction of the circumstances surrounding a school shooting, this movie is laughably terrible.

2. The young actors did a lot of open improvising as they did their scenes. You can tell. Just like there’s a certain self-conscious awkwardness to most performances, like they know they are being filmed and are trying not to look at the camera.

3. The movie is told non-linearly, jumping back and forth in time, showing various perspectives of different high school students as they roam the hallways on the last day of their lives.

4. The cinematography is kind of impressive, using long camera shots to piece the timeline together like a puzzle. But every frame is so tightly choreographed that it backfires and makes the whole “spontaneous” feeling of the movie seem really staged and artificial.

5. A lot of the movie just shows people walking around, acting kind of bored with life. Even after the shooting starts, people never really seem more than mildly concerned.

6. Even though it’s a big school there appear to be only 75 people in the whole building. And when they realize they are in mortal danger they run - or rather, walk more quickly - everywhere except for the exits.

7. The propaganda component of this movie is as subtle as the Hitler film the two school shooters are watching the day before they do their thing. The shooters are smart and sensitive - the leader even plays Beethoven on the piano and quotes Shakespeare as he starts his massacre.

8. I understand what Van Sant was trying to do with the shower kiss, but it came across as pandering and doesn’t really fit with the rest of the movie.

9. This movie could be shown to teenagers as a way to stop school violence. It makes shooting up a school seem so damn boring and pointless that kids will forget about their violent plans and go do something else.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For [USA, 2014]

Nine Things about the Movie Sin City: A Dame to Kill For [USA, 2014]

1. In 2005, the original Sin City was released. It was a startling, ultra violent, hyper noir film based on the famous graphic novel. It was a masterpiece of atmosphere and style.

2.Nine years later, the sequel is released. Directed by the same two guys (Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller) this is more of the exact same thing. Same style, same atmosphere, and some of the same characters as the first film - even one character that’s dead.

3. As with the original, this movie features several separate stories that intertwine with each other. Characters float in and out of the various stories to kind of tie them all together and make it feel like one big terrible place. You can never be sure who will live and who will die.

4. Beneath the gorgeous visuals, the movie is a cynical, depressing look at a place where nobody is happy, everything is corrupt, and even if love isn't really just an act of betrayal, it's doomed anyway.

5. One of the stories takes place before the first film. One of them takes place after the first film. The other two stories don’t really give any clues as to when they take place.

6. You don’t technically have to see the first movie before this one, but it’s a good idea. There are numerous references to the events of the first film, and it won’t always be clear what’s going on if you haven’t seen it.

7. While there is plenty of violence in this movie, it doesn’t feel quite as brutal as the first one.

8. The strength of the movie is also its weakness. Filmed in black and white with splashes of color, it's a mixture of live action, computer animation, and comic-book-style illustration. It's gorgeous, but it’s the same stuff as in the first one. There are no new innovations in its style or technique, even though the filmmakers had nine years to think about it.

9. This movie moves a little more slowly than the first, and the stories aren’t quite as cool. But it’s still beautiful, violent, and one of the more original movies of this year. Fans of the first movie should still find plenty to love about this one.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

1. This is one of those movies that doesn’t suck, but isn’t awesome, either. It’s fun, but that’s about it.

2. It’s the fifth movie about the turtles, based on the classic comic series. This is a pretty big reboot. It’s directed by Jonathan Liebesman, who directed Battle: Los Angeles and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

3. The movie had to go through several script changes. It was originally darker and more gritty, like the original comic series. But since Nickelodeon was helping to make it, they had to change the script to make it more family-friendly.

4. The plot is generic and tired; an evil businessman wants to poison a city by releasing a chemical into the air. The four turtles try to stop it (yeah, you’ve seen this before, only it was Spider-Man that tried to stop it).  Don’t try too hard to make sense of the story - it’s kind of just thrown together.

5.  Megan Fox April O’Neil. This time, April is a TV reporter. For some reason, Casey Jones is not in this movie. Oh, and Johnny Knoxville is the voice of Leonardo.

6. The turtles themselves are masterpieces of computer generated characters. The special effects in the movie are pretty amazing. And it’s totally worth watching in 3D.

7. It’s got a lot of humor - some of it is kinda dumb, some of it is pretty funny. And it has some great action sequences.

8.  It was produced by Michael Bay. It looks and feels like a Michael Bay film. The last 30 minutes is basically Transformers with turtles instead of robots.

9. Hardcore fans of the real, original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will probably think this movie cuts out all the zany grit that made them so awesome. But if you don’t really know anything about the turtles, you’ll have a good time. And then you’ll go on with your life and probably forget you saw it.

Guardians of the Galaxy [USA, 2014]

Nine Things about the Movie Guardians of the Galaxy

1. This movie is kind of different than how it’s advertised. The weird thing here, is that the movie is much better than its trailer.

2. It was directed by James Gunn, who is mostly known only among cult movie fans for making the goofy horror-comedy Slither in 2006. If you’ve seen that movie, then you know the kind of filmmaking style he has.

3. The movie opens with a serious, poignant scene of a young boy named Peter facing his mother as she’s dying of cancer. Then he gets abducted by aliens. This forms an emotional core for the rest of the movie, which takes place 26 years later.

4. The movie gives a surprisingly complete picture of the universe that Peter grows up in, and drops a lot of information (and characters) onto the audience in a pretty short amount of time. It requires some attention from the audience to keep up.

5. This is a super smart-ass movie, with quick dialogue and humor that ranges from stupid to smart to just random. It’s one of the funniest science fiction movies I’ve seen in a long time.

6. It also has incredible set design and makeup work. A lot of effort went into the details, making each part of the galaxy seem like its own unique place. Not to mention that this movie has some of the most spectacular space battles since Star Wars. Seriously, it’s kind of epic.

7.  The movie is extremely tongue-in-cheek, but has a couple of somber motifs that weave through the fun. Periodically, issues of family loss and the feelings of being a misfit make some big points.

8. There were only a couple of times that I thought the movie got a little heavy-handed about the power of friendship or whatever.

9. This is a goofy, sarcastic space opera with big action, as well as a big heart. It’s rare that I say this, but there really is something in here for almost everybody.