Review: "Saw IV" Redeems "Saw 3"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 133 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Saw IV (2007)
Running time: 95 min (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture throughout and for language
DIRECTOR: Darren Lynn Bousman
WRITERS: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan; from the story by Thomas H. Fenton and Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan
PRODUCERS: Mark Burg and Oren Koules
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David A. Armstrong
EDITOR: Kevin Greutert

HORROR/CRIME/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsey Russell, Lyriq Bent, Athena Karkanis, Justin Louis, Simon Reynolds, Donnie Wahlberg, Angus Macfadyen, Shawnee Smith, and Billy Otis

As Saw IV opens, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) are dead, and the police discover Detective Kerry’s (Dina Meyer) body. Two seasoned FBI profilers, Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Agent Perez (Athena Karkanis), arrive in this community that Jigsaw has terrorized to assist veteran Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) in sifting through Jigsaw's latest grizzly remains and piecing together the puzzle.

Meanwhile, SWAT Commander Rigg (Lyriq Bent), the last officer untouched by Jigsaw, is abducted and thrust into Jigsaw’s bloody game of bizarre death contraptions. Rigg has only ninety minutes to overcome a series of demented traps and his own obsessions to save his old friend Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), who is revealed to still be alive, or face the deadly consequences.

Saw IV has a huge twist that is somehow connected to Saw III, and it will only serve to enrich this fantastic horror/crime film series that borders on torture porn. In fact, IV is an upgrade on III. For one, whereas III seemed to be mostly about violence, gore, and sadism, IV is a suspenseful mystery/thriller that keeps the viewer on the edge of his seat in terror and keeps up the urgency to unravel the mystery. Secondly, IV finally offers the origin story of Jigsaw, and it’s a tightly written story within a story that is as poignant and tragic as many film dramas and as shocking as the best horror flicks. Thirdly, the ensemble cast is good, in particularly Lyriq Bent in his performance as the determined Rigg.

Saw IV is just as big as a gross out flick as Saw III, but this time we get an edgy thriller, a riveting mystery, and good filmmaking to go with the gleefully gory stuff.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, October 28, 2007

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Review: "Saw III" Gory and Boring... Which is Actually Kinda Impressive

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 223 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Saw III (2006)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong grisly violence and gore, sequences of terror and torture, nudity, and language
DIRECTOR: Darren Lynn Bousman
WRITERS: Leigh Whannell; from a story by James Wan and Leigh Whannell
PRODUCERS: Gregg Hoffman, Oren Koules, and Mark Burg
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David A. Armstrong (director of photography)
EDITOR: Kevin Greutert

HORROR with elements of drama

Starring: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, Dina Meyer, Mpho Koaho, Barry Flatman, Lyriq Bent, and J LaRose

The Jigsaw killer (Tobin Bell) and his apprentice, Amanda (Shawnee Smith), are still subjecting hapless victims to their cruel, sadistic, and intricate games of death. While city detectives frantically hunt for them, they’ve chosen two new pawns, the detached and clinical Dr. Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh), and Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), a grieving father obsessed with getting revenge for the death of his young son.

Saw III, of all the Saw films, may delve most deeply into the psychology of both the game masters and their “players.” However, for all its attempts at discovering the reasons and rationales for the characters’ actions, Saw III is listless, although it is as gory and gross as the previous movies. Watching the characters desperately fight to escape the mega sadistic contraptions Jigsaw and Amanda have prepared for them (there’s a twist here) is painful – ready-made to cause viewer squirming and flinching. But the whole gruesome exercise seems as dull and as unappealing as harvesting belly button lint.

Most of Saw II’s crew has returned for Saw III, including director Darren Lynn Bousman and screenwriter Leigh Whannell (who based Saw III’s script on an idea by original Saw director James Wan), but they couldn’t rebuild the fire they started for Saw II. The production values are also of lesser quality. The set looks like a rundown mechanic’s garage, and the cinematography is dull and poorly lit even for a horror flick. The acting amounts to sneers, hard stares, hollering, and over-emoting. Hardcore gore attics (and Saw fanatics) may very well find much in this flick to love, but if it weren’t for the scene with the puréed putrid pigs, Saw III wouldn’t have a single memorable moment.

4 of 10
C

Saturday, October 28, 2006

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Halle Berry Makes Late Bid for Oscar Nomination

Halle Berry news from Deadline.  Her based-upon-a-true-story, 1970s psychological drama, Frankie and Alice, is a last minute entrance into the Oscar race.  The film, which Berry produced, has been moved up to a December 17 released date in L.A. and NYC in order to qualify for the 2011 Oscars.  It will go into a wider release (the top 20 cities) on Feb. 4th, shortly after the Oscar nominations are announced.

Review: "Sex and the City: The Movie" is Groovy

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 86 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Sex and the City (2008)
Running time: 145 minutes (2 hours, 25 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity and language
DIRECTOR: Michael Patrick King
WRITER: Michael Patrick King (based upon the book by Candace Bushnell and the television series created by Darren Star)
PRODUCERS: Michael Patrick King, John Melfi, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Darren Star
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Thomas (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Michael Berenbaum

COMEDY/DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Jennifer Hudson, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Jason Lewis, Mario Cantone, Candice Bergen, Lynn Cohen, Gilles Marini, Joseph Pupo, and Alexandra Fong and Parker Fong

Sex and the City was an American comedy television series that was originally broadcast on HBO over six seasons from 1998 to 2004. Created by Darren Star, the series was based in part on Candice Bushnell’s book of the same title.

Sex and the City the series focused on 30-something Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), a columnist for the fictional New York Star and book author, and her three best friends: 30-somethings Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and 40-something Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall). The girls often discussed their desires, sexual fantasies, love, and life. In 2008, the TV series made it to the big screen as Sex and the City: The Movie.

The movie’s story opens four years after the television series ended. Carrie and the on-again/off-again love of her life, John Preston A.K.A. Mr. Big (Chris Noth) are about to get married, but what began as a modest wedding has nearly quadrupled in sized. As her 50th birthday approaches, Samantha is living in Los Angeles with her boy toy actor boyfriend, Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis). Samantha is also Smith’s manager, and she is starting to feel like a housewife, which she does not like.

Miranda and her husband, Steve Brady (David Eigenberg), have stopped having sex, and their marriage is in trouble, bigger trouble than she thinks. Charlotte and her husband, Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), are also in for a big surprise regarding their marriage. 20 years after they first met in New York City, the girls are still supporting one another, and they need each other now more than ever.

I’ve only seen a few episodes of the Sex in the City series, and that was only in syndication when the episodes were edited for content. To date, I have liked what I’ve seen, although the series obviously isn’t aimed at me or my demographic group. The characters are what appeal to me. Each has personality traits which both attract and repel, but those characteristics are more substantive than quirky. Perhaps, I like them because I expected them to be vacuous, but instead found them engaging.

Carrie Bradshaw and friends are not shallow. While they are professional women living lives of affluence and abundance, those lives are not without conflict, drama, and dilemmas. The glamour is not without some gloom, and writer/director Michael Patrick King (a driving force behind the television series) freely goes to some dark places in the lives of the women.

Sex in the City is partly about love and all its complications – even the gritty complications that cause you hurt and make you want to punish the love of your life. Sex and the City, however, is really all about the girls. If you loved them in the series, you’ll love going through hell, healing wounds, and enjoying friends and family with them in this film. Sex and the City: The Movie is both effervescent and tart the way romantic comedy should be, and this movie is one of the best modern romantic comedies.

7 of 10
A-

Monday, October 25, 2010

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150,000 People Have Now Pledged to See "Waiting for 'Superman'"

Press release:

NewSchools Venture Fund Announces $5 Million Investment in Entrepreneurial Organizations as 150,000 People Pledge to See “Waiting For ‘Superman’”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (October 11, 2010) – Honoring a pledge to the viewers of “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” national nonprofit venture philanthropy firm NewSchools Venture Fund announced today that it will invest $5 million in innovative education organizations to help close achievement gaps in low-income communities.

The new investments, which will be announced in the coming months, come in connection with the commitment http://www.newschools.org/about/news/press-releases/waiting-for-superman-pledge NewSchools made once 150,000 people pledged http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/pledge-progress to see the film. The “Waiting for ‘Superman’” pledge meter surpassed that level on October 8 – a testament to the movie’s powerful narrative and its urgent call for dramatic change and innovative solutions to the crisis facing our nation’s public schools.

“‘Waiting for “Superman”’ shines a bright light on two important truths,” said Ted Mitchell, CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund. “Excellent schools, with outstanding teachers, make all the difference in a child’s life. But in some places in this country, access to an excellent school is a matter of chance. It’s not fair, and we all need to step up to change the odds. NewSchools and its entrepreneurs are demonstrating every day that it can be done.”

NewSchools provides funding and management guidance to entrepreneurial organizations working to improve public education for low income children. NewSchools’ investments include organizations that recruit and train teachers, start public charter schools, turn around failing public schools, and create technology tools for the classroom. Some of the schools featured in “Waiting for ‘Superman’” were built by organizations in the NewSchools portfolio. NewSchools and its portfolio of entrepreneurs are developing innovative solutions to address the toughest challenges facing public education and create better opportunities for all of our nation’s children.

“With the hard work that these new investments will support, we will move a bit closer to a day when a good public education is a right for every child,” Mitchell said. “No child should have to win a lottery to get on the path to college.”

Founded in 1998, NewSchools has been committed for more than a decade to transforming public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children – especially those in underserved communities – have the opportunity to succeed. To achieve this goal, NewSchools has supported more than 40 education entrepreneurs, helping them to build strong, high-impact organizations making a real difference in the lives of children and connecting their work to the broader public education reform movement to catalyze broader systems change.

“Waiting for ‘Superman,’” directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), is a Paramount Vantage and Participant Media presentation in association with Walden Media. It examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories. Designed to start a national conversation, the movie and corresponding “Take the Pledge” campaign aim to inspire everyone to create innovative and long-term solutions to help change the course of our kids’ lives for the better. The “Pledge Progress Meter” launched in May as a way for non-profits, foundations, and corporations to match individual pledge levels with powerful action items aimed at helping both students and public schools.

The film opened in New York and Los Angeles on September 24, and continues to expand nationwide throughout October. The film is produced by Lesley Chilcott, with Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann serving as executive producers. It is written by Davis Guggenheim & Billy Kimball.

For more information about the movie, or to take the pledge go to http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/. To join the conversation visit us on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/Newschools or Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nsvf


About NewSchools Venture Fund
NewSchools Venture Fund seeks to transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children – especially those in underserved communities – have the opportunity to succeed. As a national nonprofit venture philanthropy firm, NewSchools supports education entrepreneurs, a special breed of innovators who create new nonprofit and for-profit organizations that redefine our sense of what is possible in public education. Founded in 1998, NewSchools has invested in more than 35 nonprofit and for-profit organizations and raised nearly $150 million. NewSchools takes an active role with each venture in our portfolio to help them create sustainable organizations that generate breakthrough results at scale for the students they serve. In addition to this direct support to entrepreneurs, NewSchools also connects their work to the broader public education reform movement to catalyze systems change.

About Paramount Pictures Corporation
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. The company's labels include Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Digital Entertainment, Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., Paramount Studio Group, and Worldwide Television Distribution.

About Participant Media
Participant Media (participantmedia.com) is a Los Angeles-based global entertainment company specializing in socially-relevant documentary and non-documentary feature films, television, publishing and digital media. Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives. For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs, which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s online Social Action Network is TakePart (takepart.com).

About Walden Media
Walden Media specializes in entertainment for the whole family. Past award-winning films include: “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Nim’s Island” and “Charlotte’s Web.” Upcoming films include the third installment in the Narnia series “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”

Paranormal Activity 2 Does Not Disappoint

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 85 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R for some language and brief violent material
DIRECTOR: Tod Williams
WRITER: Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon, and Tom Pabst; from a story by Michael R. Perry (based on film directed by Oren Peli)
PRODUCERS: Jason Blum and Oren Peli
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Simmonds
EDITOR: Gregory Plotkin

HORROR

Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Brian Boland, Sprague Grayden, Molly Ephraim, and Tim Clemens

It was film festival attendees who first saw, in 2007, the ultra-low budget, psychological horror film, Paranormal Activity. Eventually, well-connected and influential Hollywood types (like Steven Spielberg) saw the film, and Paranormal Activity got a nationwide theatrical release in October 2009, going on to become a box office hit.

A year later, Paranormal Activity 2, which is (mostly) a prequel and (partly) a sequel to the original film, arrives. Overall, Paranormal Activity 2 is about as good and as scary as the original film. There is a difference. The first film started well, but stumbled to an ending. Paranormal Activity 2 is hit and miss for most of its runtime, but it has an edgy last half hour and an absolutely, killer ending. [It must be noted that some of the scenes shown in the various trailers for this movie are not in the theatrical release – like the one with the baby in the middle of the street.]

Paranormal Activity 2 focuses on the home and family of Kristi Rey, the sister of Katie from the first film. Kristi is married to Dan, who is a widower with a teenaged daughter, Alli. Kristi and Dan have just welcomed a baby boy, Hunter, into their happy home. Martine, a Hispanic housekeeper and nanny, lives with them, as well as Abby, the family’s loyal German shepherd.

Paranormal Activity 2’s action begins 60 days before the death of Katie’s boyfriend, Micah, which happened in the first film. After an apparent break-in and vandalism of their home, Dan has a number of security cameras installed inside and outside the house. The cameras begin to record unusual, even weird activity. Martine and eventually Kristi and Alli begin to suspect that they are not alone in the house. Something is vexing them all, especially Hunter.

I compared the first Paranormal Activity to The Blair Witch Project, specifically that the former surpassed the latter. Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity 2 is full of characters arguing and whining and then later, crying and screaming. During the first hour of Paranormal Activity 2, I found myself being scared at the cleverly presented spooky atmosphere, but also being annoyed by the characters. It isn’t an exaggeration to suggest that anytime a dog and a baby are the smartest characters in the film that the script may have a little trouble in the character development department.

The last half hour of this film, however, is riveting and absolutely chilling. I think my heart was indeed trying to find a hiding place in my throat, and, as I write this several hours after seeing the movie, I’m still thinking about it. Paranormal Activity 2 lives up to the hype and the original film.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Two-Day Retrospective of Scorsese-DiCaprio Callabos in November

Press release:

AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE PRESENTS SCORSESE AND DICAPRIO

A TWO-DAY RETROSPECTIVE OF THE FILM COLLABORATIONS FROM THE PROLIFIC DIRECTOR-ACTOR PARTNERSHIP

NOVEMBER 13TH & 14TH AT THE HISTORIC EGYPTIAN THEATRE IN HOLLYWOOD

INCLUDING A CONVERSATION WITH LEONARDO DICAPRIO IN PERSON AND MARTIN SCORSESE SATELITTED IN FROM LONDON

Hollywood, California, October 21, 2010 – The American Cinematheque announced that it will feature a two-day retrospective of the film collaborations of Academy Award® winning director Martin Scorsese and three-time Academy Award® nominated actor, Leonardo DiCaprio on November 13 and 14 at the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The two-day event will feature screenings of the four acclaimed films on which Scorsese and DiCaprio have collaborated: GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE DEPARTED, THE AVIATOR and this year’s hit SHUTTER ISLAND. As part of the retrospective on November 14, Scorsese and DiCaprio will participate in a conversation where DiCaprio will attend in person and Scorsese will take part via satellite from London.

Tickets to the event are available online at the http://www.egyptiantheatre.com/. A full program description follows:

SCORSESE AND DICAPRIO
November 13 – 14 at the Egyptian Theatre.

After productive ongoing relationships with Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Academy Award® winning director Martin Scorsese found a new muse in the 2000s in the form of TITANIC star Leonardo DiCaprio who had already earned his first Oscar® nomination at the age of twenty for his breakout role in WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE. Starting with GANGS OF NEW YORK in 2002 and continuing through three more films (including THE DEPARTED, THE AVIATOR and this year's hit SHUTTER ISLAND), DiCaprio and Scorsese have found a common language and created a body of work that stands alongside the best actor-director partnerships. The Cinematheque is proud to present a complete series of their collaborations.

Saturday, November 13 – 5:00 PM SCORSESE & DICAPRIO
Double Feature: THE DEPARTED, 2006, Warner Bros., 151 min. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Scorsese returns to crime and the streets, though this time the mean streets are in Boston, not New York. Leonardo DiCaprio is an undercover cop pretending to be a crook and Matt Damon is a gangster (a protege of crime lord Jack Nicholson) passing himself off as a cop; as both men get deeper and deeper into their false identities, the danger to their bodies and souls increases exponentially. Scorsese finally got his Oscar for this riveting thriller that also stars Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin.


GANGS OF NEW YORK, 2001, Miramax Films, 167 min. Martin Scorsese's most ambitious epic uses the visual language of the American Western to tell a very urban story: the history of New York's development in the wake of the Civil War. Leonardo DiCaprio is a young man bent on vengeance whose nemesis, the evil but seductive Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis), leads his city's anti-immigrant "nativist" movement.

Sunday, November 14 – 1:00 PM SCORSESE & DICAPRIO
Double Feature: SHUTTER ISLAND, 2010, Paramount Pictures, 138 min. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel, an investigator who enters a mental institution to solve a crime and is quickly immersed in a tale of haunting mystery and psychological suspense that unfolds entirely on a fortress-like island housing a hospital for the criminally insane. Leonardo DiCaprio heads up an all-star cast (Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Patricia Clarkson) in this chilling compendium of mid-20th century horrors.


THE AVIATOR, 2004, Miramax Films, 170 min. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes in this biopic that earned him an Academy Award® nomination for Best Actor. The gripping drama focuses largely on Hughes' adventures in Hollywood - a time frame that allows Martin Scorsese to construct a grand old-fashioned entertainment in the tradition of the classic studio system. Recreations of the Cocoanut Grove and other Hollywood landmarks, along with expert turns by Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, make this a feast for movie fans.

Discussion at 1pm with actor Leonardo DiCaprio in person and director Martin Scorsese via satellite from London.


About American Cinematheque
Established in 1981, the American Cinematheque is a 501 C 3 non-profit viewer-supported film exhibition and cultural organization dedicated to the celebration of the Moving Picture in all of its forms. At the Egyptian Theatre, the Cinematheque presents daily film and video programming which ranges from the classics of American and international cinema to new independent films and digital work. Exhibition of rare works, special and rare prints, etc., combined with fascinating post-screening discussions with the filmmakers who created the work, are a Cinematheque tradition that keep audiences coming back for once-in-a-lifetime cinema experiences. The American Cinematheque renovated and reopened (on Dec. 4, 1998) the historic 1922 Hollywood Egyptian Theatre. This includes a state-of-the-art 616-seat theatre housed within Sid Grauman's first grand movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard. The exotic courtyard is fully restored to its 1922 grandeur. The Egyptian was the home of the very first Hollywood movie premiere in 1922. In January 2005 the American Cinematheque expanded its programming to the 1940 Aero Theatre on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.