31 Jan - "So you wish to know something of your destiny"

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

dir. Sam Raimi (The Quick and the Dead, 1995)

CAST
Bonnie Aarons (The Princess Diaries, 2001)
Joanne Baron (Valley Girl, 1983)
Adriana Barraza
Tom Carey (Spider-Man 2, 2004)
Molly Cheek (Smoke Signals, 1998)
Alexis Cruz (Stargate, 1994)
Kevin Foster (The Village, 2004)
Reggie Lee (Psycho Beach Party, 2000)
Alison Lohman (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (voice), 1984)
Justin Long (Serious Moonlight, 2009)
Ricardo Molina (Spanglish, 2004)
Bojana Novakovic (Devil, 2010)
David Paymer (Amistad, 1997)
Ted Raimi (Clear and Present Danger, 1994)
Dileep Rao (Avatar, 2009)
Fernanda Romero (The Burning Plain, 2008)
Irene Roseen (Beautiful, 2000)
Chelcie Ross (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, 1991)
Octavia Spencer (The Help, 2011)
Scott Spiegel (Spider-Man, 2002)
Alex Veadov (Air Force One, 1997)

There were a number of odd themes in this movie. The first one, which my buddy Cora pointed out, is that all of the scary parts featured things going in and out of the protagonists mouth. There was a lot of yucky mouth imagery in this movie. First the old gypsy woman removes and reinserts her teeth on the banker's desk. In two or three scenes the gyspy woman puts her gaping toothless mouth on Christine's mouth or face, and in one of those scenes green gooey vomit was involved. There's another part where the old woman sticks her arm down Christine's throat to the elbow, and a nightmare in which a fly crawls into Christine's mouth only to be coughed out later. Christine gets a projectile nosebleed at the bank and her boss asks, "did I get any in my mouth?" There wasn't any psychological horror in this movie, it was just disturbing gross-out scenes.

The ostensible theme was, I think, "does the punishment fit the crime?" or maybe, "who has the right to judge?" Christine is apparently a sweet and good-natured girl, but at the moment before her demise she admits that she could have gotten an extension for the old woman's loan payment, but it was her decision to decline it. Does that mean she deserves to burn in hell for eternity? More so than the nasty co-worker who tried to sell Christine up the river even when she was nice to him? More so than the cursing gypsy herself? We don't know. For one thing, Christine was never repentant. She did not attempt to apologize to the old woman or to her family. I guess that means something.

I still didn't like the ending. I like my movies to have heroes and I like the heroes to win in the end. This was too in-your-face ironic. Stupid.

1 Jan - "Don't leave me here alone. Don't go where I can't follow."

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

dir. Peter Jackson (King Kong, 2005)

CAST
Sean Astin (Encino Man, 1992)
Sean Bean (The Dark, 2005)
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, 1998)
Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001)
Billy Boyd (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002)
Marton Csokas (The Bourne Supremacy, 2004)
Bernard Hill (A Midsummer's Night Dream, 1999)
Ian Holm (Alien, 1979)
Ian McKellen (The Da Vinci Code, 2006)
Viggo Mortensen (G.I. Jane, 1997)
John Noble (The Last Airbender, 2009)
Miranda Otto (The Thin Red Line, 1998)
Bruce Phillips (Without a Paddle, 2004)
Shane Rangi (The Chronicles of Narnia: the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 2010)
John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989)
Andy Serkis (The Prestige, 2006)
Joel Tobeck (Eagle vs Shark, 2007)
Liv Tyler (That Thing You Do!, 1996)
Karl Urban (Priest, 2011)
Hugo Weaving (The Wolfman, 2010)
David Wenham (Moulin Rouge!, 2001)
Elijah Wood (Deep Impact, 1998)

I brought the new year in with this most appropriate film, The Return of the King. Does any movie (besides maybe Star Wars) better represent the inevitable end to all things and simultaneously a rebirth of all that possible and good in the world? Perhaps at times it hits a little heavy with the symbolism, especially those parts where Sean Astin is talking in that halting and horribly affected hobbit accent, about "the old stories" and the likelihood that they will never survive their quest.

But there are good parts too. I remember in the movie theater when I went to see this the first time, when Faramir asks his father, the steward of Gondor, whether he would have been happy if Boromir was still alive and if Faramir had died in his place. When Denethor said "yes!" the whole theater collectively gasped. There are few scenes which represent the idea of perfidy so concisely.

I most often hear two key critiques. The first is that if the eagles were able to rescue Sam and Frodo from the volcano and take them back to Rivendell, why didn't they just get the eagles to drop them off in Mordor in the first place? The answer to that question seems simple to me. Traveling by eagle is terribly high-profile. I think those flying Nazgul would have nailed the eagles in short order, they wouldn't have even made it over the mountains.

The second critique is that the ending is waay too long, and I can get behind this. There's satisfying denoument and then there's LOTR, wherein things get ridiculous. First Frodo destroys the ring, and you're like, "badass! The movie's over! I've got to pee like a racehorse!" but then there's Aragorn's coronation, and some speeches, and then a part where everyone's reunited in Rivendell, and then a part where everyone's reunited in the Shire, and then Frodo and Bilbo get on the elves' boat and sail away. I suppose they should have streamlined all that somehow. So the movie ended with a sense of excitement and wonder instead of...peacefulness? It's unclear, and unsatisfying for that reason.

All the same, I always thought the ending was kind of sad, that even though the battle was won and the ring was destroyed and everything turned out as best as could possibly be expected, the elves still went away. They didn't want to live in the world anymore. I don't understand sometimes why everything magical has to disappear.

29 Nov - "Save it for the suckers"

A Diva's Christmas Carol (TV 2000)

dir. Richard Schenkman

CAST
Vanessa Williams
Rozonda Thomas (Snow Day, 2000)
Brian McNamara (Short Circuit, 1986)
Kathy Griffin (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
Stephanie Biddle (Timeline, 2003)
Richard Jutras (The Whole Nine Yards, 2000)
Amy Sloan (The Day After Tomorrow, 2004)

I love a good Dickens adaptation, and while this was far from that, it was at least a little more fun than On Strike for Christmas. The storyline is familiar, derivative, in fact, so much so that it feels like the writers simply watched a bunch of other Christmas Carol movies instead of reading the book before they had at it. One detail that I sort of liked was that instead of a Ghost of Christmas Future (too scary!), the Diva watched an E! True Hollywood Story about her life and death. The Ghost of Christmas Present was at least symbolically accurate, because that guy's supposed to be a real hedonist, but Kathy Griffin as the Ghost of Christmas Past was way off the mark and didn't bring in anything except a bunch of stupid Kathy Griffin-style jokes. There was way too much screen time wasted here.

Jan 1 - "Shot, huh? That'll do it everytime"

Ghost (1990)
dir. Jerry Zucker (Rat Race, 2001)
starring
Patrick Swayze (Tall Tale, 1995)
Demi Moore (The Scarlet Letter, 1995)
Whoopi Goldberg (The Associate, 1996)
Tony Goldwyn (The Last Samurai, 2003)
Vincent Schiavelli (A Little Princess, 1995)
Stephen Root (Crocodile Dundee 2, 1988)

When I'm feeling down, there's really only a handful of movies I feel like watching, depending with the source of anxiety. When challenged by matters of the heart, I think Ghost is a pretty obvious route to catharsis, unless you're like some anti-geeks who can't stand supernatural themes, then I guess you might watch Notebook (still haven't seen it!) or some other Nicholas Sparks crap. I like Ghost.

First of all, and this used to be privileged knowledge, "Unchained Melody" is my favorite love song. It really slays me. Right in the guts, and the version by Il Divo sung in Italian is impossible to sit through without at least a little wistful sniffing. Here we get the Righteous Brothers version, which is the most familiar to everyone. I think it's the part where the lyrics stutter a little "I-i-i need your love."

Gosh.

Here's another thing: I think Whoopi is awesome. I'm a big fan, I think she's the real deal. Class act all the way. I love the scene where Sam takes her to the bank and she's trying to act all cool and casual, although I would think that a professional con artiste would have more grace under pressure and be able to roll with the punches. I wish I were psychic.

The whole initiative may have gone better if my momma didn't ruin the MOST PIVOTAL SCENE (besides when Sam spooks out on his frenemy Carl) by pointing out that the in the scene where Sam and his girl reunite from beyond the grave! (and Unchained Melody is crooning full blast) and I'm supposed to be all impressed because their LOVE TRANSCENDS THE BOUNDARIES OF THIS MORTAL COIL-- my mom points out that even though Patrick Swayze is getting all intimate with Demi Moore on the screen, in the story world it's really a possessed Whoopi Goldberg doing all the cuddles, and wouldn't that feel weird to Molly?

Ambiance ruined?