Scream 2

Scream was great.  It mocked horror cliches, but also paid tribute to them; the script was sassy and clever; the villain had a fairly unique gimmick, but was still anonymous enough --- with an easily removed costume and small weapon --- for there to be a legitimate whodunnit mystery.  All in all, it is a fun watch.  Inevitably, a sequel was greenlit and filmed as soon as possible.  Scream 2 came out less than a year after the original film, and expectations were high.  How high?  The female cast were featured in a Rolling Stone cover article:

With these choices, it is obvious that Tori Spelling should be on the magazine cover.  Whaaaa...?!?

I don't really follow what exactly is supposed to be going on in that picture --- are they happily cleaning up after a triple homicide? --- but it does help prove one thing: when it comes to sequels, dumb things happen.

In an unusual bit of theatrical time-keeping, the events of Scream 2 takes place two years after Scream, even though the actual films were released less than a year apart.  Sidney (Neve Campbell) is now in college and has a group of friends that have not tried to murder her (yet), just a reminder that college is way more fun than high school.  Unfortunately for Sidney, heartless bitch/reporter Gail Weathers (Courteney Cox) wrote a book about the murders that took place in Scream and the book was turned into a movie called Stab that is just premiering.  That means Sidney gets a lot of prank phone calls from people mimicking the killers.  Thankfully, Sidney learned from her mistakes in the last film and nips that annoying subplot in the bud.

At the premiere of Stab --- the clips of which are pretty amusing --- the theater gives away promotional Ghostface costumes.  That seems like a pretty good idea for about ten minutes, until one of the many people dressed as Ghostface commits a double homicide in the theater.

Worst.  Glory hole.  Ever.

Of course, since this is a horror sequel, that is only the beginning.  Apparently, the killer is obsessed with the murders in Scream, which in turn makes the killing of Sidney a top priority.  That also puts targets on the backs of all her friends, too. 

Two out of three expendables characters in this scene realize it

With all that in mind, it occurs to Sidney and her friends that it is very likely that the killer has infiltrated their clique.  But which one of them is the killer question mark/exclamation mark/question mark.

The acting in Scream 2 is all things to all people, if that means that it's a crap shoot.  I actually thought Neve Campbell improved slightly in her return to the role of Sidney.  It is difficult being a likable horror protagonist, but Campbell was able to portray a fairly intelligent and tough woman convincingly.  Again.  Of the returning characters, Courteney Cox saw the most positive change.  This time, she actually shows human emotions and I wasn't necessarily hoping she would die.  She also had the biggest character makeover of the group, so she didn't look quite as trashy in this film.  Jamie Kennedy reprised his role as the movie-obsessed nerdling and shocked me again by being decently entertaining.  If you cut the scene where he does mediocre impressions, I would even say that I liked him in this movie.  David Arquette was okay, too, although I don't quite understand why the filmmakers chose to give him an exaggerated limp and Bob Dole hand.  I guess it was a red herring, and they did give a line of dialogue to explain it, but Arquette isn't a good enough acgor to play disabled and not have it be hilarious.

"Everybody knows you never go full retard"

Of the newbies, Jerry O'Connell and Timothy Olyphant had the most screen time.  O'Connell was a little vacant, but it fit his character.  Olyphant does not play a lawman of any sort, and if you know his filmography at all, you know that is not a good sign.  He gets to overact, which is fun enough to watch, but it wasn't anything special.  Liev Schreiber didn't have any lines in Scream, so his character felt new in the sequel.  Schreiber wasn't great.  His character is tough to like, and Schreiber was charmless in a complex part.  Elise Neal was inoffensive, but her character was extremely bland.  Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jada Pinkett Smith were both okay as dual screaming victims.  Gellar's character was a little stupid, but not too annoying.  Pinkett Smith was extremely obnoxious, combining knowitallism with being a person who talks throughout the movie in the theater.

I'm offended by stereotypes, too, Jada

Omar Epps didn't come off much better, with his main characteristics being insensitivity and cheapness, but he did have a hilariously stupid death scene, and that counts for something.  Laurie Metcalf was annoying as the suspiciously high-profile actor playing a relatively minor character, in grand Scooby-Doo tradition.  Rebecca Gayheart and Portia de Rossi were stereotypical sorority girls, although de Rossi's eyebrows did provide some of the film's biggest scares.  In fact, all of the sorority girls were horrifically dull, with only Sarah Michelle Gellar achieving anything beyond "generically bitchy."

My favorites are "judging bitch" (back, right) and "smarmy bitch" (far right)

There are also some entertaining cameos.  Pre-Dawson's Creek Joshua Jackson had a few solid lines in film class, and casting David Warner in a minor role was a nice nod to classic horror movies.  But the most entertaining cameos belonged to the movie-within-a-movie, Stab.  Heather Graham stretched her skills by playing a brainless blonde bimbo, and (following up on a gag in the first film) Tori Spelling played the movie version of Sidney.  Both were chuckle-worthy, but Luke Wilson was hilarious in the two lines he had, doing a surprisingly good job mocking Skeet Ulrich in Scream.

Wes Craven returned to Scream 2 as director and writer Kevin Williamson also returned.  With the creative forces behind the original film, as well as the surviving cast, all the pieces were in place to make Scream 2 a great sequel.  That didn't quite happen, though.  Craven did a solid job juggling a gigantic cast, and I thought the returning cast all acted better in this sequel...ignoring Arquette's limping.  Thanks to the advent of Caller ID, though, the best part of Ghostface's routine --- the phone calls --- largely lost its effect.  That meant that we had a silent killer that was missing his calling card. 

Yes, that was bad.  I'm sorry.  You may resume.

Sure, there were a few phone calls, but most of them were blatant I-want-you-to-know-I'm-watching-you ploys, with only Gellar's scene actually involving tension or scares.  Williamson's script, which was the driving force of Scream definitely feels less impressive in Scream 2.  I realize that the script had to be written quickly, but this just feels lazy.  There is less wittiness this time, and what smarts it has are largely recycled.  Did you like the characters asking each other who the killer is, using traditional horror movie logic?  Did you like the sassy female explaining how stupid horror movies are?  Did you like the killer with an incredibly flimsy motive?  Good, because Scream 2 gives you an extra helping of them.

Oh, you liked the phone scenes?  Well...sorry about that.

The kills aren't very much fun, either.  The sheer idiocy of Omar Epps' death --- the combination of stabbing through a stall and Omar having his face pressed right up to it AND doing the stabbing blind --- doesn't even compare to the boombox-toting hip hop dance troupe inadvertently covering up a murder on the quad.  That was jaw-droppingly stupid.  The script has all sorts of holes and terrible plot devices that stick out, scene after scene.  My least favorite scene was the car scene.  Craven does what he can to milk it of every ounce of suspense, but it's so horribly contrived that I just got mad and started rooting for the killer.  Almost as bad is the "everyone with a cell phone must be tackled" scene, where the potential murder victims conveniently forget that the person they're looking for should have some sort of voice-altering device, along with a phone, in their hands.  Ugh.  And then there's the "subtle" clue that tips you off as to the identity of one of the killers.  Oh!  And the second killer?  Yeah, I get the motivation, but if killer #2 is supposed to have killed more than one person in this movie, I'm calling bullshit.  There are a few moments of amusing self-awareness, like the Stab clips and some of Randy's scenes, that feel smart and clever, but they are sadly rare.  This script and plot, as a whole, kind of suck.  They're not godawful, because horror fans know you can do much much much worse, but this was extremely disappointing, coming from the team that made the original so much fun.

The original Scream had some violence and gore, but the light tone kept it from feeling too explicit.  Scream 2 doesn't really amp either up much.  I would say there is a similar amount of gore (with the quad murder being the most gruesome) and only a few more kills.  The set pieces for these scenes weren't that great, with the stage being the best of the bunch; I guess that makes the soundproofed room the worst, because they treated it like a maze instead of an auditory game of cat and mouse.

Look at Ghostface, Courteney.  He's as afraid of you as you are of him.

I suppose that there is enough violence to keep audiences interested, with ten kills overall, but something is missing.  Part of the problem is that some of the kills --- specifically the policemen --- seemed far too easy.  Another is that some of the showcased kills feel a little cheap.  I get it, serial killers don't have to be gentlemen, but at least three characters died while not looking at their killer.  I probably wouldn't care about that if the kills were more memorable or if the script kept things funny, but that's what happens to horror movies when the plot leaves you bored: you start thinking.  And that is rarely good for horror films.

"You know that thing where I frequently show off a movie camera?  You probably shouldn't think too hard about that."

I don't know.  I feel like I'm being too harsh on Scream 2.  I didn't hate the movie.  I was just expecting it to be a lot better.  That was frustrating, because there are a few genuinely good moments in this movie, and I'm glad that the more obvious suspects weren't the killers.  This is a mostly competent horror movie, I have to admit.  I just didn't enjoy it much.

The Frighteners

Fun fact: The Frighteners was the movie that convinced executives at Universal to offer director Peter Jackson the chance to make King Kong (2005).  Why?  I honestly do not know.  The Frighteners is not a bad movie, but it doesn't scream "give me the keys to a blockbuster remake," does it?  We're talking about a Michael J. Fox film where he neither travels through time nor is a werewolf --- hardly the sort of thing that makes you sit up and notice.  And yet, there was something about this film that gave those movie execs faith in Peter Jackson's talent.  Of course, those same bigwigs also chose to move scoot up the release date of this film from October (which makes sense for a movie about ghosts) to July (where it could get crushed by Summer blockbusters), so maybe the answer to this mystery is that Universal only hired idiots.  Or, maybe The Frighteners is an underappreciated gem, a glimpse at what a moderately successful Jackson could do, back before The Lord of the Rings made him truly famous.

The Frighteners follows Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox), as he operates a low-rent ghost-busting business out of his (unfinished) home.  Many of the locals consider Frank a con artist, and they're right --- just not in the way they think.  Following a car accident that killed his wife, Frank gained the ability to see and speak to ghosts.  In fact, a trio of ghosts --- disco gangster Cyrus (Chi McBride), classic nerd Stuart (Jim Fyfe), and Old West veteran The Judge (John Astin) --- are his only friends, as well as his business partners.

Frank sends his ectoplasmic buddies to haunt a place, and he shows up to "exorcise" them for a fee.  Things start to get weird for Frank shortly after meeting Lucy (Trini Alvarado) and her awful husband, Ray (Peter Dobson); Ray drops dead and starts pestering Frank, so Frank starts spending time with Lucy, only to fall in love with her.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a rogue ghost that is murdering folks around town.  Even more unfortunately, the FBI believes that Frank is the killer.  Worse still, the killer likes to mark his upcoming victims with a ghostly number on their forehead...and Lucy is lucky number forty-one.

Who can possibly clear Frank's name and save Lucy and the other innocent victims-to-be?  Frank.  It's obviously Frank.  He's the only one who can talk to ghosts.  Think about it.

The special effects in The Frighteners are probably the most memorable aspect of the film.  They still look pretty good, even if the CGI is a little dated now.  It just depends on how creative Peter Jackson & co. were.  For instance, the whole killer-pressing-his-face-out-of-the-wall bit wasn't that great.

MJF realizing that they're aping A Nightmare on Elm Street 12 years too late

Unfortunately, that bit was used a lot.  On the other hand, scenes that toyed with the idea of what ghosts could do or have done to them turned out much, much better.  When I think of The Frighteners, my mind doesn't jump to the killer --- I think about when a ghost got a blast of bug spray through the face.

That sort of creativity overcomes some of the technical shortcomings of the FX in general.  Granted, they aren't all examples of great special effects, but they are probably what you will remember about the film.

I will never forget shit stain Jake Busey face

The acting in The Frighteners is pretty much all over the place.  Michael J. Fox doesn't play angsty very well, and a lot of his character's mannerisms bring Marty McFly to mind.  He's still able to make the character likable, though, even when the script doesn't do him any favors.  Trini Alvarado played a paper-thin character, and she didn't do it very well.  I get it, her role was poorly written --- that doesn't excuse her lack of range.  Of the ghosts, Chi McBride, Jim Fyfe, and John Astin probably got the most screen time, but the most entertaining one was definitely R. Lee Ermey playing a (surprise!) drill instructor.  Yes, he's done this schtick before, but he does it well.

His likes could be "Blah, blah, blah, maggot!" and I'd still smile

I was surprised to find Jake Busey in a role that I liked him; he was completely over the top, but he doesn't play "convincingly human" well, so it fit him.  Another pleasant surprise was Jeffrey Combs getting a chance at a memorable role outside of the Re-Animator series.

Above: Combs as "An asshole with an uzi" --- actual movie quote

Combs was my favorite character in the movie.  His particular brand of crazy matched the tone of the film better than anyone else in the cast.

I'm not entirely convinced this isn't Combs' actual chest

I also enjoyed Peter Dobson in his role as a self-absorbed jerk.  Like Ermey, Dobson doesn't stray far from his comfort zone, but there is no denying that he is good at what he does.  It was also nice to see horror veteran Dee Wallace in a key role.  She hams it up a bit, but I think she did well, given the lines she had.

Director and co-writer Peter Jackson made an unusual film in The Frighteners.  It's not a straight-up horror movie, but it's not funny enough to succeed as a horror-comedy hybrid, either.  The main reason for this is a dumb script.

I mean, how do they expect us to believe a dementor got from Azkaban to Australia?

Some of it can be seen in the little moments, like a flashback to Michael J. Fox's character --- an architect building his dream house --- playing basketball A) in a suit B) with bad 90s skater hair C) on a court he put in before he finished his house, because architects LOVE basketball courts and D) on what appears to be a regulation -height hoop, despite being approximately 4'6".  Other times, the stupidity comes at you in the main plot, like when MJ figures out who killed his wife thirty minutes after the audience does --- and the film treats that moment like it's a revelation.  Hell, you can argue that the entire climax at the abandoned hospital felt rushed and under-explained.  If the script was wittier or funnier, the flaws in the plot wouldn't matter so much.  But it's not and they do.  Thankfully, Jackson knows how to film entertaining action sequences and goofball moments, or else this movie would be painful to watch.  And if you were expecting the acting to save this movie from it's plot, then you aren't familiar with most of Peter Jackson's work.  The Frighteners is at its best when it is being weird and goofy, but there's just not enough of those elements to make the movie stand out.

Chi McBride's last-ditch meeting to salvage the movie: everybody gets an afro

The Frighteners is undoubtedly a flawed movie.  It's too kooky to be scary, but not funny enough to balance dozens of murders.  The central concept is a solid one and Michael J. Fox and the ghosts are likable enough, but the picture doesn't gel as a whole.  Even Danny Elfman's score feels a little scatterbrained.  Is there a good idea for a movie here?  Yes.  Does The Frighteners pull it off?  Not really, but it's not offensively bad.  It's a good try that didn't quite work.

Am I the only one who watched Michael J. Fox's erratic driving in this movie and immediately blamed it on his Parkinson's?  And then felt kind of bad?

Sinister

31 Days of Horror: Day 4

"From the producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious"?  Does that mean that Sinister is not a slasher film or remake, but *gasp* another new, suspense-driven horror flick?  Well, that remains to be seen.  I do like the change of pace we've seen over the last few years, away from cheap scares and toward better-acted and -directed horror films.  I'm not saying that we're in a horror renaissance or anything --- a lot of crap movies are still being made --- but I am seeing more types of horror, with varying levels of quality, and I like that.  Of course, these new IPs have already spawned multiple crappy sequels, but that's a problem for another time.

Ellison (Ethan Hawke) is a true-crime writer that is a few books past his prime.  His specialty is to investigate cold cases and then speculate wildly, often throwing local police under the bus in the process.

His other hobbies include having the audience watch him watch something on the screen

If that doesn't make him charming enough, he is what all authors in movies are: a heavy drinker.  Ellison has just moved his family, wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance), son Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) and daughter Ashley (Clare Foley), into a new home in a small town where there is a major unsolved murder case.  Four members of a family were found hanged to death in their backyard; the fifth member of the family, a young daughter, disappeared without a trace.  There were no real clues in the case and no suspects.  The upside to the murders is that Ellison got his house very cheap.  That's right...he bought the murder house.  Logically, that shouldn't make a difference.  But in Sinister, it does.  While investigating/moving his crap into the house, Ellison comes across a box of Super8 home movies.

"Super8 tapes...this will definitely help me with the murder that happened in 2011!"

Despite the odds of these tapes being useful, Ellison finds footage of the murder.  Not the kind that points to a killer, mind you, but more like the snuff film variety.  But there's more.  There are three other tapes, showing three other family massacres, dating back to the mid-sixties.  The more Ellison studies the films and investigates the different murder cases, the more Ellison notices similarities.  These are all families being killed, there are no suspects or clues in any of the murders, and the youngest child in each family is never found.  Oh, and a dude with a creepy face keeps showing up in the background of the scenes and in the drawings of the missing children.

Mr. Boogie appears to be naked

If that's not creepy enough for you, how about this?

He's being haunted by Slipknot?

But how can the same person have killed all those people over such a wide stretch of time?  What is happening to the missing children?  Are we looking at an elderly serial killer, or a legacy of murder being passed on from generation to generation?  Or is it something more *groan* Sinister?

The acting in Sinister relies heavily on the performance of Ethan Hawke.  That's not a huge surprise, since the movie is essentially watching him watch home movies.  Hawke is pretty good, though; he's certainly not likable, but he did a good job showing fear slowly creep up.  The rest of the family was an afterthought in the script, but it is worth noting that Juliet Rylance's character was right 100% of the time; she didn't have a juicy role, but there is something to be said for being the voice of logic and reason in a horror movie, even if it is a thankless task.  The kids were just kids.

...and just kids are just creepy

Performance-wise, they were adequate.  My only takaway is that Michael Hall D'Addario needs a damn haircut.  Fred Dalton Thompson makes a brief appearance as an unfriendly sheriff, and I guess he was fine.  I was a bit surprised to see James Ransone playing the part of the deputy; Ransone seems to specialize in weasely characters, so it was nice to see him try something new, even if his character wasn't particularly interesting. Slightly more effective was Vincent D'Onofrio's cameo as a college professor, if only because his post-Law & Order speech cadence really lends itself to somewhat windy knowitalls. 

Sinister was directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson.  His work in this film marks both the movie's strengths and weaknesses.  On the plus side, Derrickson did a great job building up suspense and creating a creepy haunted house vibe.  However, that is only effective because of how creepy the Super8 snuff films are and some impressive sound effects.  The script itself is a bit of a mess, as it seems torn between wanting to be a true crime mystery with the haunted house being a side effect of Ellison's drinking and being a straight-up supernatural horror movie.

Similarly, is this frightening, or is she doing an impression of a handicapped person?

I thought the final decision as to what direction the movie was going in came too late, which makes some bits confusing in retrospect, unless you're satisfied with the explanation *waves hands* MAGIC.  Derrickson is also not much of a stickler to details.  For instance, all of the "Mr. Bogey" pictures looked like they were drawn by the same person, instead of by several different children, decades apart.  And then there's Ellison's note-taking skills, where he wastes most of a page with a very basic question, just so the camera can see it being written.  Those are fairly nit-picky problems, I know, but it's not like I'm asking where the killer found Super8 film to record the most recent killings.  Oh, that's right: MAGIC. 

Murder victims are the next howling wolves for hipster T-shirts

And that's really too bad.  Sinister comes very, very close to being a cool movie.  The home videos are disturbing.  There is atmosphere and tension.  The villain has a cool look to him.  And then the story settles for a supernatural explanation and starts throwing in all sorts of cheap scares.  You know what would have made this movie better?  Not having a goddamned bogeyman as the culprit.  Someone kidnapping small children, raising them to be killers, and then watching them pay it forward would have fit this movie far better than some sort of shadow demon that kills people because of arbitrary property lines (a much-abbreviated explanation, but essentially accurate).  Still, just thinking about those 8mm videos creeps me out, so it's not a total loss.

Les Misérables (2012)

Let me start by professing my cultural ignorance when it comes to musicals.  My top three musicals are South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  My least favorite musicals are Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Chicago and Rent.  Suffice to say, if you are a fan of movie musicals, then my opinion may mean nothing to you.  I normally wouldn't go out of my way to watch this movie, but Les Mis is apparently the most successful musical of all time and I knew nothing about it.  Musicals may not be my cup of tea, but that sort of gap in my knowledge is inexcusable.  And who knows?  Maybe I'll be one of the millions who love Les Misérables.

Les Misérables is the first musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel to reach the big screen, although there have been a few dramatic big screen adaptations already.  In other words, if you don't know the story by now, SPOILER ALERT.  The story begins in 19th century France with Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a convict whose crime was stealing bread for a starving child.  After serving a mere nineteen years for his crime, Valjean is paroled by Javert (Russell Crowe), the French equivalent of Boss Godfrey.  Valjean quickly realizes that there are not many opportunities out there for someone who's spent more of his adult life in prison than free, so he chooses to skip bail and start a new life with a new name.  Years later, Valjean is living under an assumed name and is living the good life; he is a factory owner and the mayor of a town.

I wonder if he ran on a "tough on crime" platform?

In his factory, one of his workers, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), is fired.  Why?  As far as I can tell, it is because A) she won't sleep with the foreman and B) she has a child, to whom she sends a sizable chunk of her paycheck.  Neither reason would pass muster nowadays, so I'm not exactly sure why being a parent mattered.  Whatever the reason, Fantine is fired and quickly starts selling parts of her body for cash; her hair and teeth are the first to go, but it isn't long before she is a bald, toothless prostitute.

Why so glum?  Now you don't have to brush your hair or teeth!

The next thing you know, Fantine is dying.  Jean "I'm totally not Jean Valjean" Valjean and Javert discover her, and Valjean takes her to the hospital and promises to take care of her daughter Cosette if worse comes to worse.  In a movie called "The Miserable," I wonder how likely that outcome is?  Simultaneously, Valjean learns that someone (specifically, not Hugh Jackman) has been arrested and is sentenced to die for being Jean Valjean.  Because he's a master of planning ahead, Valjean reveals himself to the court and basically says "Yeah, yeah, I'll serve my sentence," and then tells the dying Fantine that he'll be the father to her child.  Those two don't go hand in hand, so when Javert shows up to arrest him, Valjean fights and escapes, finds the child, and takes her with him to live a new life under yet another identity.

You know a kid's got a tough life when this guy is the less creepy option

We then jump forward in time again, until Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) is an eligible young lady.  Unfortunately, she falls in love with a French radical in the 1830s.  While her love seems doomed, Javert is seen sniffing around their neighborhood for Valjean once more.  Toss in some an unrequited love, a dirty kid, and some comic relief, and this decades-long plot is ready to come to a head.  And if you want to know the effect of open sewage on gunshot wounds, this movie might not be the most scientifically accurate.

Little known fact: Valjean dips everyone he carries in open sewage.  It's a fetish.

Here's a factoid that everyone who talks about this production of Les Misérables cannot help mentioning: the cast sang each take live, with only piano accompaniment.  Most musicals record their soundtrack several weeks ahead of time and later mime their performances for the movie cameras.  In other words, the actors of Les Mis had a better opportunity for onscreen chemistry because they had the freedom to change things up from take to take.  Did they make the most of it?  Well, I have to admit that the emoting in this film is pretty good.  Hugh Jackman did a reasonably fine job in the acting department; his character goes through the most changes and Jackman doesn't ever seem silly in the process.  Russell Crowe played "stern" capably, although I would argue that this is one of his more wooden performances, overall.

Russell Crowe: making movies, making songs and fightin' around the world

Anne Hathaway was a scene-stealer with limited screen time, even though I really didn't like her character at all.  Who sells their teeth before their flesh, anyway?  And why does anyone want to buy her teeth?  Sure, Hathaway seems to have roughly five rows in her mouth, but that's just weird.  I'm not a huge Amanda Seyfried fan, but she played her (to be fair, totally bland) role well.  I don't know what it is about Eddie Redmayne, but his face genuinely bothers me in this movie; I think it has something to do with his awful brushed-forward/There's-Something-About-Mary-gel-scene haircut.  He's okay as a youngster rebelling and falling in love.  The more I see of Sacha Baron Cohen, the less impressed I am by him.  He's not bad or annoying in this movie, but he doesn't seem to have the ability to play anything resembling human.  I liked Helena Bonham Carter well enough, though, and the two paired up decently well.  I was impressed by Samantha Barks, even though her part was fairly small. 

...and, apparently, underclothed

But Les Misérables is a musical!  What about the singing?  I would have to say that the best singers in the cast were the supporting women.  Hathaway and Barks were pretty impressive, and Seyfried was pretty good except for too much vibrato in her falsetto.  I didn't care for Hugh Jackman's songs.  He's a bit too "musical theater" for my tastes.  And yes, I know that this film is probably the best place for someone with a musical theater background, but that doesn't change how much I liked him.  I was surprised to hear how strong Crowe's voice was, until I remembered he had a finger-quotes rock band.  Bonham-Carter and Baron Cohen were comedy relief, so their voices were intentionally at odds with everything around them; I wasn't a big fan, but they served their purpose. 

Their purpose: to look like a Christmas hangover

Tom Hooper chose Les Mis as his directorial follow up to The King's Speech.  He could have gone for another British period piece, but he chose to bring a musical that is entirely singing to the big screen instead.  This is only the second film of his I've seen, but I'm going to go ahead and say that Hooper is a pretty damned good director.  The choice to not pre-record the vocals was interesting, and I think he got some of the best acting-while-singing I've ever seen.  The camerawork was very good and the set designs were impressive.  Since the film jumps around so much in time, there were a lot of different sets, and each one looked great.

I'm pretty sure this building was only in about 15 seconds of film

From what I can tell, Hooper did an admirable job bringing this huge musical to the big screen.  Too bad I didn't like it.  Despite that, the final scene still hit me like a ton of bricks, out of absolutely nowhere, which just goes to show how effective Hooper is at working his script.

So, I didn't like Les Misérables.  The directing was good, the acting was fine, and I liked some of the singing (just not particularly the two male leads).  What's my problem, then?  If I had to narrow it down to one reason, it would have to be the songs.  I didn't really like any of them.  There were a few snippets, here and there, that I enjoyed --- Anne Hathaway's signature song, and the beginning to the love song of Cosette and Marius --- but they served as segues to larger medleys that I didn't care for.  My overwhelming impression of the songs in this musical was "Shouldn't these rhyme more?"  My imagination tried to help fix the songs, too, by pairing any line ending with "gone" or "on" with "like Jean Valjean."  Not surprisingly, it didn't help.  It also doesn't help that the entire film is sung, so I could not truly enjoy the downtime between medleys, either.

I also had some major problems with the story.  Ignoring Javert's insatiable bloodlust for Valjean --- which seems more than a little out of proportion, especially given all the other criminals Javert had met that were worse --- still leaves me with points that I just couldn't comprehend.  Fantine's storyline confused the hell out of me.  I think she was fired from her crap job because she had a child; this somehow turns into accusations of prostitution, which still should be nobody's business but hers and the police; once she's out on the street, Fantine almost immediately contracts a fatal dose of prostitution.  I think that's the gist of her story, but the logic behind it escapes me.  Almost as bad was the little revolutionary street rat, Aladdin Gavroche.  That little shit caused more trouble than anyone else in the movie (with the possible exception of that loaf of bread Valjean stole before the first scene).  This film would have 70% fewer casualties if he hadn't essentially shamed the rebels into fighting to the death.  I also don't understand Javert's motivation when he pinned a medal on Gavroche's corpse; for someone who viewed crime as black and white, that felt very uncharacteristic.

For the record, cute girls in newsboy clothes are hot, while revolutionary boys with girl hair are little shits

Obviously, I am only speaking for myself.  Countless people have seen and heard this musical and love it to shreds; if there is going to be a movie that satisfies that audience, this is it.  I can appreciate the work that went into this production, and the craftsmanship of Tom Hooper and the cast is undeniable.  It just didn't tickle my fancy.  If you're into musicals, you'll probably dig this one.  If not, then this won't change your mind.  If you're somewhere in-between, I think the artistry will win you over.  But for me, it falls into the realm of barely worth watching.

Why didn't I like the songs?  I think I just have a problem with people singing different songs at each other:

Hellraiser

31 Days of Horror, Part 14

There are nine Hellraiser movies.  Did you know that?  I certainly didn't.  Nine movies?!?  That's just ridiculous, especially when you consider that Speed 2: Cruise Control has out-grossed the entire Hellraiser series at the box office.  Sure, five of the Hellraiser sequels went direct-to-DVD, but being quantifiably less impressive than Speed 2 is still difficult to fathom.  While Hellraiser has not been as financially successful as some of its other horror movie brethren, there has to be some reason they still keep making these movies, right?  Right...?

When you think Hellraiser, you naturally think of Pinhead, the face of the franchise, right?  Well, this is only the first entry in the series, so you're going to have to wait a bit to catch more than a glimpse of him here.  Larry (Andrew Robinson, who looks like the evil cousin of Randy Quaid) and his wife, Julia (Clare Higgins) are moving into a new house.  Well, it's a "new" house; it used to belong to someone in Larry's family, but is now dilapidated.  The house technically belongs to Larry's brother, Frank (Sean Chapman), but nobody has heard from Frank in years; knowing Frank, he's probably dying from syphilis in jail somewhere.  He won't mind if Larry moves in and takes over this fixer-upper, right?  Not so fast.  Larry is missing two crucial pieces of information about Frank.  The first is that Frank had a passionate affair with Julia a few years ago; it was not about love so much as it was about expressing carnal appreciation.

Frank exudes sexuality like...wait...that's Frank?  Really?  Ew.

The other interesting factoid is that Frank is actually living in the house with them.  Sort of.  You see, Frank tired of his lifelong quest for new physical experiences and sexually transmitted diseases; when he learned of a puzzle box that would take his senses to a new plane of existence, he was all in.

Interestingly, he left his pants on

Frank didn't exactly get what he was looking for, though.  The puzzle box opened up some sort of dimensional rift, which allowed the Cenobites to capture him and bring him to their realm.  What is a Cenobite?  They are "explorers of pleasure and pain," and their particular flavor of sadomasochism has transcended the sensory limits of humans.

To put it another way, you won't hear this guy complain about his shoes being too tight

A freak coincidence allows Frank to escape the Cenobite dimension, although not in his typical physical form.  He needs to feed on the blood and organs of others to regain his classic mediocre looks.  Lucky for Frank, Julia can't say no to a pretty face and agrees to lure victims to Frank so he can slowly regenerate himself.

It is explicitly stated that Julia wants to have sex.  With this.  Interesting.

So what's the problem?  Well, Larry is still around, and he probably wouldn't be cool with Julia seducing strangers, murdering them and allowing his nogoodnick brother, Frank, to feast on their remains.  And Larry's daughter from a previous marriage, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), has started poking her nose into things, too...and she finds this weird puzzle box thing.  I wonder what will happen if she solves it?

There is not a whole lot of acting in Hellraiser.  The main character, I guess, is Ashley Laurence's, and she treats the role like a typical slasher movie part.  And that's fair, given her scenes.  She's not bad, but she's not exactly impressive, either.  Clare Higgins was pretty dreadful as Julia.  It's one thing to play a character that is hopelessly, irrationally in love with someone who asks them to do bad things.  It's another issue entirely when that "someone" looks like they were turned inside-out.  I don't care how much you lust for someone, that is a turn-off; if it's not, I suggest you stop torturing small animals and preemptively turn yourself in before you start murdering transients.  Also, Higgins has to play a woman who is seducing men in the middle of the day, and her "come hither" hairstyle is basically a 1980s version of Bride of Frankenstein?  I just don't get the 80s.  Andrew Robinson typically plays unlikable characters, so I was a bit surprised when he appeared to be a bland but friendly fellow for the first three-quarters of the film; it turns out that he's not quite believable as a nice guy.

This is his "sympathetic" face

The last act throws in a twist and lets him get a little nasty, though, so I think it more or less balances out.  I found it interesting that two actors played Frank.  Sean Chapman played the only-sexy-because-it's-in-the-script "Normal Frank," while Oliver Smith played "Frank the Monster."  Neither was particularly noteworthy, but you've got to give Smith more credit for playing a harder part.  As for Pinhead, Doug Bradley was used sparingly, which allowed him to remain mysterious and creepy.  What else can you ask for in your iconic villain?

Hellblazer was written and directed by Clive Barker.  His direction is a little shaky at times, but he makes up for it with the horror elements.  Basic things, like editing and continuity, are recurring problems; thankfully, they are all fairly minor moments.  The score doesn't help matters much, because it is stereotypical and cheesy.  Barker manages to balance those flaws with some pretty cool horror elements.  The practical effects, for the most part, stand the test of time and are still disturbing.

The face puzzle?  Not so much.

The special effects are unusual and consistently disgusting.  In a movie about torture-porn villains, it only makes sense for the audience to witness all sorts of weird and painful-looking moments.

Barker's attempts to utilize CGI effects did not work as smoothly.  I don't care what is going on in your story, but you should never take characters that look like they could fit in a Lord of the Rings battle scene and have this happen:

Who let John Madden in the editing booth?

 The real problems for Clive Barker occur in the writing department.  From the wretched dialogue to the idiotic character motives, I have a hard time believing that a professional novelist wrote this script.  To give you an idea, here is how Monster Frank convinced Julia to murder people so he could eat them:

1) He told her, "Believe me, it's me."  Bear in mind that this is a different actor's voice we're hearing in this scene, too, since the Frank roles were split between two people.
2) When Julia acts justifiably freaked out, Monster Frank gets annoyed.  He actually cuts her off, saying "Just help me, will ya?"  Oh, when you put it that way, I would love to feed my murder corpses to an ozzing pile of slime and pus.  Oh, wait, I am not a mass murderer, looking for a way to get rid of the bodies.  I am Julia, a dissatisfied housewife.  And I just let Inside-Out Man win me over with promises of sex.
3) ?
4) Profit

And I'm not even going to touch the Joseph Mengelev joke during the dinner party scene.  It's not just the dialogue that is lacking in Hellraiser.   There are some basic plot elements that simply fail to work.  Characters make inexcusably stupid decisions and the plot that has built up over 80 minutes devolves into a chase scene, starring a magical box.  But every time the story takes a wrong turn, it follows up with a scene of unique cinema violence, which almost neutralizes the stupidity with gore.

Pages 87-93 are just this guy dropping the F-bomb over and over

What Hellblazer boils down to is how entertaining it is when there is not blood and gore on the screen versus how good it is when things get icky.  Every horror movie has these filler moments that are typically used to try (and fail) to make the audience care about the characters.  Barker puts effort into these scenes, but they are scripted awkwardly and are fairly dull.  However, when the bizarre/gory scenes occur, they are pretty fun to watch.  The moments that made me squirm the most were fairly basic.  One involves Andrew Robinson cutting his hand on an old nail --- specifically, the suspense that went into that scene --- and the other was how weird it would be for some stranger (Cenobite or not) to put his fingers in my mouth.

Why does this freak me out so much more than eternal torture with hooks and chains?

If Hellraiser had more moments that were unsettling instead of just visually impressive, I would be able to overlook the weak script.  As it stands, the dialogue and plot are pretty miserable, even when you spice things up with the novelty of a torture demon/angel.  Even that is barely enough to make this film worth watching.  It makes me wonder how good the eight sequels are, since they will inevitably have less novelty.  Maybe this series is a metaphor for the puzzle box, and all who watch it are being tortured by the Cenobites of cinema!  Heeey...I think I just pitched the plot to Hellraiser X: Pinhead in Space.