October 2, 2010

Devil

I have a tendency to approach films from certain writers/directors from a very biased place. M. Night Shyamalan is one of those writer/directors. I think the man is a bleeding genius. Maybe it comes from the twisted place where my mind exists most of the time, or maybe it's because we have a similar writing style, but when the majority of the population is busy hating what he's putting out, I am seeing aspects of his films as brilliant and amazing.

That out of the way, here is my take on Devil, without giving too much away. I read somewhere (that I can't get back to now) that this is the first of a three film project so I am not putting a lot of stock in anything right now until I can see the whole project in its entirety.

The movie opens with an inverted flight over the city of Philadelphia as we hear the voice of Jacob Vargas as Ramirez, telling us a story his Catholic mother had told him as a child, a story of how the Devil would take human form and punish the damned before taking their souls. According to the story, the Devil would integrate himself into a group of people and systematically kill them (i.e. take their souls). The events would begin with a suicide and end with the Devil killing the last person in the group in front of the person who loves them the most in their life.

We first meet Chris Messina (Vicky Christina Barcelona, Julie & Julia) who plays as Detective Bowden of the Philadelphia Police Department, a recovering alcoholic widower who we later learn lost his family in a hit and run accident five years prior to the events of the story. Bowden has been called to process the suicide foretold by our narrator and figures out that it actually happened several blocks from where the body was found.

As Bowden and his partner are processing the site of the original suicide, our narrator then tells us that innocent bystanders are often claimed as part of the Devil's game and to punctuate this, a shard of glass falls from the window the jumper had destroyed in his fall, nearly landing on Bowden's partner.

In the midst of all of this we meet five more people as they enter an elevator in the same building, unaware of what had just taken place in the floors above. Two of the faces in the elevator are very familiar if you are fans of the TNT network dramas. First we meet a security guard played by Bokeem Woodbine, fresh off his stint as Leon Cooley in the Holly Hunter vehicle, Saving Grace and then later we find Logan Marshall-Green, currently undercover as Dean Bendis in the cast of TNT's Dark Blue. Also in the elevator are Jenny O'Hara (most recently recognized as Nita from TV's Big Love), Drag Me to Hell's Bojana Novakovic and Geoffrey Arend (TV's Trust Me and Body of Proof).

When the express elevator these five people are riding in stops between floors, we finally meet our narrator, Ramirez, a security guard, and his partner, Lustig played by Matt Craven (Public Enemies, Distrubia). As the lights in the elevator car begin to flicker, Ramirez becomes obsessed with an image of the Devil's face in the security footage, bringing his narration into the action of the movie.

As told in Ramirez's fable, the passengers in the elevator car are systematically picked off one by one and we as the audience begin to speculate which passenger is the Devil. Or what if it isn't one of the passengers? What if Bowden's the Devil? Could it be Lustig or Bowden's partner, Markowitz? What about Ramirez himself, his fable just a clever ruse?

I won't tell you who the Devil is but I will say, Shyamalan succeeded in surprising me, once again. While I ran the gamut, suspecting all the major players, including the one who was "just too easy," the true Devil was in fact the one I suspected the least. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know why I dismissed the possibility. I just did. To me, that is a sign of good twist writing.

I don't think I am going to back a trip to the theater for this one, at least not 100%. There were no big action scenes or special effects or a great soundtrack to be diminished by watching it from your own couch. If you find yourself with nothing to do one weekend and want to go to the cinema, Devil isn't going to be a waste of money but you are also not going to miss anything if you wait for it on DVD.

July 9, 2010

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance

Cassie Palmer is a clairvoyant who was raised by a vampire mob boss.

It sounded like a good idea when I first bought the book. And probably could have been if not for some glaring annoyances that I just couldn't get past.

To Chance's credit, she did tweak vampire lore a bit and make it her own; debunking the Christian/Stoker ideology that we've all grown so used to... can't go out in the sunlight, garlic is like poison, the demon that has replaced their soul makes them fear (sometimes even burn in the presence of) holy relics... and creating a semi-unique world for Cassie and her team of undead.

Now... to the complaints...

For starters, while there is nothing wrong with adults reading Harry Potter or similar stories, Touch the Dark is an adult novel. Not XXX Adult (although it does take a couple of detours into a R rating), but definitely not intended for the 12 to 16 category. However, enchanted window locks that scream when a hostage tries to open said window...very Harry Potter in context. Little annoyance, and it did go away after only one appearance...

Which leads me to my next complaint. There was just too much going on for one book. Chance really needed to make the story of Cassandra Palmer at least a trilogy, if not a series. As it was, she crammed too much information into a dimestore paperback and the end result was a lot of unanswered questions and dangling threads.

I'm never quite sure how much of the plot to "give away" in these reviews but basically, you start out reading one story, about a clairvoyant in her twenties who lived with a vampire mob until she was 16, at which time she ran away. Now the Boss has a price on her head and that's where we pick up Cassie's story.

But... about two thirds of the way through the book...yes, two thirds... the whole thing shifts and we find out that Cassandra isn't just a name that Chance plucked from the baby name book. Following a brief and somewhat muddled Greek mythology lesson, we learn that the Pythia of Delphi is an ongoing "title," as it were. As one Pythia grows old ("old" here means 2-300 years) a sybil is chosen and trained to take up the mantle when the current Pythia dies. And this is where I stop sharing the plot, for fear of giving away something important.

And my final, major complaint is...It's not uncommon for dark fantasy authors to speculate about famous (or infamous) figures from history. How many times have you read that Elvis was an alien and he didn't die, he just went home? Jack the Ripper a vampire (or nobleman, or both)? Sure! Why not? Karen Chance, however, took this plot device to a whooooooooooole new level of absurdity. Special guest stars in Touch the Dark include Cleopatra (the asp was actually a vampire), Dracula's two sons (Mircea and Radu), a Frenchman named Louis-Cesar who was turned in the seventeenth century (put that one together on your own; I did), Raphael, Rasputin, and Jack the Ripper.

Final judgment... good premise, not a bad story but way over the top, sometimes to the point of distracting.

May 31, 2010

Doctor Who - Season 5.... Almost to the end

As we near the end of season 5 (or "series" as they say it in the Doctor's homeland), I feel I am a little more qualified to "review" the Eleventh Doctor than I was in the beginning. A little less "knee-jerk," a little more informed opinion this time around.

While I still don't "love" Matt Smith the way I did David Tennant, I have to say the kid has spunk. The production team promised that the adventures we went on with this newest Doctor would be darker and more terrifying than in the past and I am seeing that prophecy come to fruition. Definitely darker, if not more terrifying.

I've chosen to do this now, after the airing of episode 9, rather than at the end of the season, because I am hoping for big things from the season finale, episode 13, and with that hope I carry the hope of something worthy of writing about here.

Basically, as I said, I'm not in love with Smith but he has earned my trust and respect as a Time Lord. And Karen Gillan, Miss Amy Pond, is definitely pulling her weight. If I am not in love with Eleven, I am most definitely in love with Amy Pond. That girl has more than earned her stripes (as I am two episodes ahead of my friends here in the States, I'm trying to avoid sharing spoilers...suffice it to say you may find yourself cursing the writers in a couple of weeks).

Next week is the obligatory "celebrity guest" week, where the Doctor and his companion find themselves elbow to elbow with a shining star from the Earth's history. This season it is Vincent VanGogh so that should be interesting to watch.

April 10, 2010

Doctor Who - Season 5 - less "review" more "opinionated editorial commentary"

Well, fellow Whovian Spoonbenders, I just finished watching the Beast Below, episode two of season five of the British sci-fi action dramedy Doctor Who. Season five brings with it mixed feelings of sadness and eager anticipation with the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor.

I waited until I had watched a second episode with the 26-year-old Matt Smith (this is important only because it marks the point in the show's history where I am older than the Doctor...in fact, had his mother waited another five days, we'd be exactly two years apart in age...but I digress)...I waited until I had watched a second episode with Matt Smith in the role before really forming an opinion. After all, I am one of those who helped to make David Tennant the most popular Doctor in the show's 37 year history. I wasn't at all ready to let him go.

Matt Smith has his work cut out for him, to make me love him. He doesn't exactly make me want to lay on an anthill, as I feared he might, but I don't love him, yet. I do, however, think I kind of love Amy Pond, the Doctor's newest companion (played by Karen Gillan). I can't quite put my finger on it but she's definitely got some qualities that are winning me over after saying such a heart wrenching farewell to previous companions, and after falling head over feet for Lady Christina de Souza (played by Michelle Ryan in the episode Planet of the Dead) and hoping that she was going to be the next companion.

I still say the bowtie has got to go...but I think I can get used to the Eleventh Doctor. I haven't seen enough yet to say whether or not I'll ever love him the way I did Ten but there's hope for the young man yet.

**EDIT** Five episodes down, eight more to go so I thought I'd stop back in and update my Spoonbending Whovians on my thoughts up to this point... Somewhere along the way, I heard from the powers that be behind the Doctor (I think it was Steven Moffat but don't hold me to that) that this new season/Doctor would be darker and in some cases scarier than the show has been in the past. And having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode that culminated tonight (if you are watching in the UK...in the States you still have two weeks before the new Weeping Angels episode comes to a close...unless you are the staff of bending spoons or any number of other devout and internet savvy Whovians, then you are on the UK schedule despite your Yankee status)...Having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode which culminated tonight, I have to agree. This season is definitely getting darker and scarier. There are still some little details about Matt Smith that I'm not crazy about but I don't hate him.

March 8, 2010

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

When a movie like Alice in Wonderland comes along, I have to take a few days to step back from it and let the wonder (*ahem*) wear off before I come on here and gush over how amazingly spectacular it was and how much I love love loved it. The truth of the matter is that I have loved Alice in Wonderland as a story for the bigger part of my life, seen eight or ten different versions, and when Tim Burton casually mentioned, four and a half years ago, that he'd love to get his hands on the story, I started watching every corner of the internet waiting for word that he had, in fact, gotten his hands on it. After all, I am convinced the man should be considered for god status.

I've been glued to every word of news about this project since roughly August of last year so as I approached the ticket window Saturday morning my nerves began to flutter. What if it doesn't live up to the hype I've given it in my own mind? What if it's not amazingly spectacular?

Repeat after me. Thou shalt never doubt the Burton/Depp duet. They have yet to disappoint me. And Alice follows that pattern perfectly. But this time it wasn't Depp who wowed as the Mad Hatter, because I don't think anyone doubted he could make that work; nor did we doubt Helena Bonham-Carter (finishing the triad) could be a convincing evil queen. For me, the show stealing performance went to Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts. While such a small role in earlier visions of the story, this was a Return to Oz-esque rewrite and Glover was given a much larger role than I had expected for him. And whether he wear the white hat or the black hat, "George McFly" will always hold a special place in my heart.

Cliche' as it may be, the Cheshire Cat has long been one of my favorite characters in all of literature and Stephen Fry gave him a most delightful treatment. I don't think I could have been more pleased. Absolom, the Blue Caterpillar is given life by Alan Rickman, rounding out the star-studded cast. In case you hadn't figured out where I stand on this one...Run. Go. Now. See it. Several times.

January 18, 2010

The Lovely Bones

It's taken me a little over a day to compose my thoughts to a point where I can give this the effort that it requires. Based on the 2002 novel by Alice Sebold, the Lovely Bones was directed by Peter Jackson (the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and stars Saoirse Ronan, Mark Whalberg, Rachel Weisz and Stanley Tucci.

Saorise Ronan plays the main character, Susie Salmon, who also narrates the story as a memory. The story revolves around the life, death and afterlife of Susie Salmon, as she first struggles with the trials of a 14-year-old girl and then with the notion that she's been murdered. Her father, Jack Salmon, (Whalberg) also struggles to find closure and justice for the death of his daughter and the two help each other find what they are looking for throughout the course of the story.

Let me take a step away from this for a moment to say that I haven't read the book so I have only the film upon which to form my opinion. I have heard that the book is "wonderful" and "terrifying" so I may have to give it a whirl....when I'm finished with the waist-deep stack of other "to-be-reads" that I have waiting for me already. But the movie did not bring to my mind words like "wonderful" or "terrifying." It was sad, but by no means a tear-jerker (although there were others in the theater who would disagree with me).

In true Peter Jackson fashion, the imagery was incredible. The "in-between," where Susie is "stuck" is actually something out of my own dreams (or nightmares, in some cases). The colors are vivid and striking where vivid and striking are appropriate but stunningly monochromatic where they weren't.

Brevity, however, is not Jackson's strong point. Even the Frighteners was a two-hour adventure. I bring this up only because there are long movies and there are movies that feel long and at 2 hours and 15 minutes, The Lovely Bones was both. I found myself begging for the end. And yet, I'm still not 100% decided that I didn't like it. I definitely don't think it will be one that I will buy at full price for my collection but maybe if I find it in the $3 bargain bin....

So, that's it. That's what I've come up with in my 28 hours of pondering and chewing. I've come up with nothing. I still don't know whether or not I enjoyed the film and am definitely unclear on whether I should see it a second time. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

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a literary collection devoted to showcasing works of new and established fiction in the SF/F/DF/H genres. Our blogspot is an extension of the magazine focused on reviews and rants regarding that which is new and exciting in the world of SF/F/H