Time for Another Infamous Update!

And now for another installment of "Let's do this Shit!"

This life these days is a slow progression of bugs be we're not stopping for your melon rinds, no no. We're on to far bigger buffalo this time. A challenge! I have a friend at work, who has a friend, that paints two pictures a day and then posts them here (wait for link). So let's play that game. Let's do this everyday.

Here's my very opinionated review of a movie I saw recently:

The other day I watched The Horsemen with Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang. Patrick Fugit and Peter Stormare also make (weird) appearances, as does the guy with a foot fetish from 6' Under. It was directed by Jonas Akerlund, who before this directed and worked on a host of music video collections for acts like; Metallica, Madonna, and Blink 182. This movie, for all intents and purposes, looks to be his directorial feature debut, which I don't think is the problem here, not totally anyway. The Director of Photography, is actually pretty good. He (I forget his name and really, this is a waste of time anyway) did an alright job creating atmosphere, (It's winter in Michigan) and had some lovely, though maybe a little canned, exposition shots. The tight close ups worked well with the soundtrack to push how the mind can freeze in moments of extreme tension, however, probably one too many of these moments where time slowed down just to show how overwhelmed Dennis Quaid's character is supposed to be. His character plays a hard-boiled detective type that recently lost his wife and is having trouble connecting with his kids. Classic noir archetype, but this is not a noir movie. This is a tale of horror! Of the psychological kind! With biblical references!! For at the same time that he is having trouble being a father (lo, even communicating in complete sentences), he is also trying to solve a series of murders in which the victim is suspended, bled to death, and then some sicko writes "Come and See" all over the walls.

Interesting side note: I was actually googling the Apocalypse when Netflix suggested I watch this movie. Fucking Algorithms.

The real core problem in this movie is the writing. This is what happens when the first draft goes to print. The script is terrible. Example:

Quaid:
"But Sir! The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are here to bring HELL on Earth! And it's coming TOMORROW!"

Captain:
"OK! You have 24 hours!"

That is so on the nose it's a booger.

The plot scenarios and devices are obvious and crappy. Here's an example. A woman is found, dead, by one of three daughters. In the scene where we first meet them they are sitting on the couch together crying; two blond White girls in red and one older Chinese girl in black. Yes friends, she is adopted. Something about her just doesn't fit. You'll never guess why. It has nothing to do with her adoptive father either. Seriously. And speaking of weird parent/child relationships, there's the relationship Dennis Quaid has with his sons and how that stupid deal ties in with the climax of the movie.

I'd give it away, but I have some stony scruples about film etiquette.

What the hell, I hope nobody watches this movie.

So finally, Eighty-three minutes into this atom-bomb of a movie, we find out that Dennis Quaid's older son is having a teen-aged meltdown. A real, "I hate you dad!" tantrum and why not? All Dennis Quaid had to do was step into the dumb kid's room and this entire horror show wouldn't exist.

I'm done talking about this. Don't watch this movie.