Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2

Director: Tod Williams

Written By: Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon, Tom Pabst. 

Photography: Micheal Simmonds 

Starring: Brain Boland, Molly Ephraim, Sprague Greyden.

Year: 2010.

Country: USA. 

I hated the first Paranormal Activity movie, I thought it was boring, self-inflated, unintelligent and unimaginative. I feel like Oren Peli is the guy who only studied film because he thought it would be easy and not out of genuine interest. And don't go giving me shit about it only having a tiny budget, go watch a Belgian movie called Man Bites Dog, It has the exact same budget and that's a masterpiece. 

 Paranormal Activity 2, I thought, might be worth giving a chance. Different director, different writers, different actors, bigger budget. Every potential to be a better film than the original. I was wrong, it's worse! 

The entire fist act of the film is handheld footage of a couple (Brain Boland and Sprague Greydey) documenting the first year of their baby's life. This is a nice way to introduce the characters, but it goes on way too long and it feels like you're being forced to sit through home videos of someone you don't know's ugly kid. 

 One day the family of four and one dog come home from a day out to discover their home has been broken into; nothing is stolen, but the place is turned upside down. The dad pays to have top of the range home security-cameras installed all throughout their house in case whoever it was decides to come back. The  not at all racially stereotyped Latin housemaid, however, seems to think it's something else; she thinks it may be a daemon and starts trotting around the house praying with her swinging incense burner.

 The rest of the film is a slow montage of banality; feeding the baby, swimming in the pool, making dinner and every now and then they'll fit in a scary falling high-chair. Most of the 'paranormal activity' that happens is so stupid and dull that it feels like satire. You have to wait exactly one hour and six minutes before something remotely jump-worthy happens. All this leading up to an absolutely absurd ending. 

 The only good thing I can come up with about Paranormal Activity 2 is that the farther character is quite likeable, but that's it. 

 Paranormal Activity 2 is more tiresome and pretentious than the original. How these films have built up such a fan base, I will never understand. Just watch Poltergeist instead, it's scarier and you'll have more fun.

Score: 1.5/5

Jaws

Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg.

Written By: Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. 

Photography: Bill Butler.

Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. 

Year: 1975.

Country: USA.      

 Jaws is back in cinemas this month so I wanted to talk about. I really love this movie. Jaws is to me what The Exorcist is to Mark Kermode. As I'm writing this I'm drinking black coffee out of a Jaws mug and I have  John Williams' score open in a YouTube tab.  

 There are three important things I want to point to start with. 

 Firstly, Jaws is movie about a shark. Exactly that, It's not a metaphor for the Vietnam War or Adultery or anything else. It's about a shark. 

 Secondly, Jaws is the name of the movie, not the Shark. I'm just saving you from sounding like a moron. (Though the mechanical shark was actually named Bruce by the cast and crew) 

 Thirdly, Jaws is very very much a horror movie. There's a lot of dispute over weather Jaws is a horror, or merely a thriller. A strong argument is because the film only has a PG certificate (although my copy says 12) and we're used to horror films having a R/18 rating. But the old Universal Horror classics like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman are all Us, and you can't deny they're horrors. The other common, stupider, argument is that Jaws is just plain 'not scary'. I've heard this argument from lots of people for lots of different movies including The Exorcist and The Shining. Fist off being scary is not the definition of horror; George A. Romeo's Dawn of the Dead is nothing but fun and gore, there are no scares in there, but still, unarguably, horror. Secondly, fear is subjective. Many people found Paranormal Activity unwatchably horrifying, I found it unwatchably boring. Anyway, I digress. Jaws is not only a horror, it's a special type of horror; we've all heard the stories of people not being able to go in the sea that summer, failing their swimming lessons or some not even being able to take a bath after watching Jaws. Great horror plays on people's fear, Jaws creates fears.  


 Jaws is from the 70s, the golden age of American cinema. This was the decade where we were gifted with movies like The Godfather, Easy Rider, The French Connection, and Star Wars. The 70s also brought us some of the greatest directors like Coppola, Scorsese and the director of Jaws; Steven Spielberg. Spielberg is possibly the most famous man in cinema (Only  person arguably more famous would be Hitchcock) but at the time of Jaws this was only his third movie. Duel and Sugarland Express were the only films under his belt. Robert Shaw even considered turning down his role because he'd never heard of the director. 


Jaws is set on the small fictional Island of Amity, a tourist trap in the summer. It's approaching the 4th of July, the biggest day for commerce on the island from all the visitors from the mainland. But when the remains of a young girl turn up on the beach, it looks like the town's summer may be ruined by something that's lurking in the water... (Do sharks lurk? Or is lurking something exclusive to crocodiles?)


 The lead role of Chief Brody is played by Roy Scheider, an ex-New York City cop who has a phobia of the water. The catalyst of this phobia is never properly explained.  You've also got Richard Dreyfuss playing a brilliant role as oceanographer and shark expert, Matt Hooper. It's entertaining when both of these characters exchange in discourse; Hooper is overenthusiastic about the sea and Brody is petrified by the very mention of it.  


 When we first see the character Quint, played by classic movie actor Robert Shaw he seems like a bit of a cliché and he starts to make Jaws feel more like a B-Movie. If you haven't seen Jaws, imagine crossing Herman and the Sea Captain from The Simpsons. However in a incredible scene about three-quarters through where Quint and Hooper are showing each other their scars, we learn learn about his back story and that his persona is really just a suit of armour that he wears. When we lean this is makes the character more interesting. If it wasn't for this scene his (spoiler) death wouldn't have been as effective. 


 For me the most interesting character is the Mayor of the Island who refuses to close the beaches. He's an original kind of protagonist, he's not driven by personal gain or just plain insidious. He actually has the island's interests in mind, he doesn't want to put local businesses in danger. He's not evil, he's just ignorant. And also cowardly, when the Mother accuses Brody of not closing the beaches, the Mayor just stands their and doesn't take responsibility.       


I'm not trying to show off, but I'm pretty much never scared by movies, mostly because I know the difference between reality and fiction. Jaws is the only movie I can remember that properly scared me when I watched it for the first time at a young age. The scene where Brody and Hooper are out at sea for the first time in Hooper's boat and they find a wrecked fishing boat. Hooper dives down to inspect the boat, while he's doing so the head of the fisherman floats out a hole in the keel. Nothing has ever made me jump as much as that scene. I think this is an important scene in the film, because it's here that you realise that Brody, Hooper and Quint are not safe, just because they are in a boat.

 Jaws is filled with treasureable moments, like the shooting stars that you see, which according to Spielberg are unauthentic and captured by accident, and not an effect. Also the memorable lines like 'You're going to need a bigger boat' and 'It's only an island when you look at it from the water'

 Two things that really make the film are the editing from the amazing Verna Fields (Jaws was her final movie) and the theme from John Williams which is up there with Star Wars in most recognisable themes. As the stories go, Spielberg was really down about Jaws, he wasn't getting the support he needed from Universal,  the mechanical shark wasn't working and plethora of other problems. He went to John Williams and demanded 'What have you got for me?'  John played him the infamous track 'DUN DUN...DUN DUN...' Spielberg was astonished; he knew right away that this music could save the film.  With the combination of editing and the music, he could avoid showing the shark as much as possible. When you do see the shark it does look fake, but I'm always having too much fun to care.

 Jaws is also a staple in movie history. Originally, films were released regionally. You would get a big premier in Hollywood, then a couple of weeks later in New York and then maybe a month later in some small cinema or drive-in in a Ohio town before eventually moving on worldwide. Jaws was the first movie to get a nationwide release It was released in every cinema on the same day, like it's done now. To afford this, Universal had to lunch a massive marketing campaign. Bringing out Jaws themed lunchboxes, t-shirts, toys and the a paperback of the original book were all released. Jaws was one of the first movies to do this (If my cinema knowledge is as good as I think it is, Planet of the Apes was the first ) but this seems common place now. Walk in to any Toys 'R' Us Today and it will be filled with Avengers swag. Jaws also rocketed Spielberg's directing career, after this Columbia gave him $20 million to make Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 


 Jaws is one of the greatest American and the best film from a director with a phenomenal career. It's both great fun and brilliantly made. For your money you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing!      


Score: 5/5   

  

Prometheus

Prometheus 

Director: Ridley Scott.

Written By: Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof. 

Photography: Dariusz Wolski.

Staring: Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce. 

Year: 2012.

Country: USA.   

 30 years after the release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott makes a return to Science Fiction, and to a familiar franchise. Prometheus is set in the Alien universe about 40 years before the events of the first movie. And is in many ways, a prequel. But it's not an Alien movie. There are no Xenomorphs in this fim regrettably. 

  Instead we get a new humanoid race, only referred to as The Engineers. Who the crew of the Prometheus believe may be able to tell us something about our past.      

  Ridley Scott, the director of the first Alien movie back in '79 returns for Prometheus, although there are some scenes that feel like the reins have been handed back to Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Damon Lindelof, of Lost fame, is one of two writers and we're also treated to an all-star cast. Man of the year, Michael Fassbender adds another sterling performance to his CV, channelling Peter O'Toole as a synthetic. Though as good as he is, he hasn't got shit on Lance Henriksen. Guy Pearce is in there, unrecognisably, as a ninety-something Peter Weyland. Not much can be said for Charlize Theron, she gives a sturdy performance, nothing spectacular. For me the show was stolen by Noomi Rapace. A lot of buzz was generated around her for 'The Girl Who...'  trilogy which I haven't seen yet. This is the first I've seen of her, I was impressed. Even if her accent did occasionally slip through.             

  I appreciate the boldness of Prometheus, it takes of big themes and questions especially around the origin of life and faith. I also picked up what I thought were warnings about climate change and nuclear armament. But that may have been me looking in to deep. Of course Sci-Fi has never shy about topics like such. Prometheus doesn't really explore anything that 2001, Solyaris or Star Trek V don't. Even way back in 1951, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a film warning against the disasters The Cold War could bring.   

 Some of the things in Prometheus, to put it bluntly, don't make sense. And I'm not talking about deliberate ambiguity, the screenplay is just incoherent at points. But it is a Ridley Scott film, so it will have a director's cut or three, which hopefully will make things a bit clearer.    

  If you were hoping Prometheus would be lots of  grand setpieces, then you're in luck, because there are plenty. And great ones too.  The scares are there, but they are few and far between, and you don't get the claustrophobic feel you got with the first film. This is New Ridley Scott - the directer of historical epics. 

 The cinematography in Prometheus is breathtaking. So is some of the CGI, but I'm old-school and no computer generated image can live up to the model Nostromo from Alien. 

  The Prometheus holds a crew of 17, having this many characters and having the movie start with them waking from cryo-gen having not met means you don't get any banter between the crew. You can also tell that these members are marked for death as most of them are typical horror movie morons straight out of a Friday the 13th Sequel.     

 Prometheus has a lot of flaws,but it's a big movie that asks big questions. Anything that big doomed to have flaws. Overall it's an enjoyable movie filled with thrills and subtle references for sci-fi die-hards to spot. It's a good films, but I think I;ll wait for the Director's Cut before I buy the Blu-Ray.