Stay Alive: Good Movie, Poor Title

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 57 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


Stay Alive (2006)
Running time: 85 minutes (1 hour, 25 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for horror violence, disturbing images, language, and brief sexual and drug content
DIRECTOR: William Brent Bell
WRITERS: Matthew Peterman and William Brent Bell
PRODUCERS: McG, Matthew Peterman, Gary Barber, and Roger Birnbaum, Peter Schlessel, and James D. Stern
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alejandro Martinez
EDITOR: Harvey Rosenstock and Mark Stevens
COMPOSER: John Frizzell

HORROR

Starring: Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Sophia Bush, Jimmi Simpson, Adam Goldberg, Rio Hackford, Milo Ventimiglia, and Maria Kalinina

The subject of this movie review is Stay Alive, a 2006 horror film released by Hollywood Pictures, a Walt Disney Pictures production label. The film is directed by William Brent Bell, and McG (who directed the Charlie’s Angels films) is one of the film’s producers. Stay Alive follows a group of teens who enter the world of an online video game in order to solve the mystery of their friend’s death.

After the mysterious and brutal murder of his childhood best friend, Loomis Crowley (Milo Ventimiglia), Hutch MacNeil (Jon Foster) inherits “Stay Alive,” a test copy of a next generation, first person shooter, horror survival game that Loomis had. The game is based on the true story (only in the movie) of “The Blood Countess,” an 18th century New Orleans noblewoman who ran a boarding school for girls. It was later discovered that the countess was a witch and that she would torture and murder her students.

Hutch gathers a group of friends and fellow gamers to play Stay Alive, but they don’t know anything about the game other than that they shouldn’t have this test copy. Soon after playing the grisly game, Hutch and his friends discover a chilling connection: they are being murdered one-by-one by the same method by which the characters they play are murdered in Stay Alive. In fact, the game has blurred the line between the real world and the world of Stay Alive. Now, the gamers must unravel the mystery of The Blood Countess to defeat her because that’s the only way they are going to stay alive.

The advertising campaign for the new horror film, Stay Alive, suggests that the movie is a gruesome horror show about a gang of youngsters playing an equally gruesome horror video game. In order to get a “PG-13” rating, the filmmakers toned down what should be the goriest scenes, or perhaps the gore exists and will show up in an “unrated” DVD release. However, what does exist on film is quite good. Stay Alive is a goofy, fun horror flick that is way too unsettling and creepy at time. Director William Brent Bell has even mastered the jump-out-at-you tricks.

The film doesn’t really go into the gaming sub-culture, which is disappointing. The characters are contrived and hackneyed (I did like Frankie Muniz’s Swink Sylvania), and the plot has some holes. Still, this is a better video game movie than the mediocre adaptation of a real first person shooter game, Doom. The gaming sequences are convincing, and I certainly wanted to be in the game with Hutch and his friends. The sound effects and computer animated ghosts mixed with the idea of the supernatural creeping through our electronic entertainment makes this film kind of like an American version of such recent Japanese horror films as Ringu or Pulse. It also gives a nod to such apocalyptic scary movies as In the Mouth of Madness and Season of the Witch and video games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

In the final analysis, Stay Alive is a fun “gotcha” horror flick that combines the typical elements of a slasher film that has a supernatural boogieman (such as Halloween), and those are a youthful cast as the victims, a merciless killer, and lots of bumps in the night. In that case, Stay Alive is not as good as the best of that horror sub-genre, but it’s still good.

6 of 10
B

Friday, March 31, 2006

Negromancer Rocks October with Restart

Welcome to Negromancer, the rebirth of the former movie review website as a movie review and movie news blog/site.  Due to some financial stuff, Negromancer is now a ComicBookBin blog.  By the way, the Bin has smart phones apps and comics.  More info to come.

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

New "Rise of the Guardians" Poster Revealed

Here is a new poster from DreamWorks Animation's latest 3D computer-animated flick, Rise of the Guardians (to be distributed by Paramount Pictures).  Due November 21, 2012, the film stars the voice acting talents of Chris Pine, Isla Fisher, Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, and Dakota Goyo.

Ken Burns' "The Central Park Five" Closes Montreal Black Film Fest

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE to close the 8th Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIBFF)

The heart-wrenching film, The Central Park Five, will close the 8thannual Montreal International Black Film Festival on September 30, as a Quebec Premiere. THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, which was also selected last May for the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival this fall, was directed by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns, who have said that the film represents "the untold story of one of New York City's most horrible crimes."

"It is an honour to have this film make its Quebec debut at the MIBFF. We always close the festival with a hard-hitting film, and THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is undoubtedly a film that will send chills down your spine, take you to the depths of human evil and change the way you think," stated Fabienne Colas, President-Founder of the Festival.

In 1989, five Black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between six and thirteen years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, the film tells the story of this horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

"This tragedy reminds us how much we struggle to come to terms with America's original sin, which is race. One only needs to look at the history books to understand that, unfortunately, the Central Park Five are not unique in American history," said Ken Burns. "This case is a lens through which we can understand the on-going fault-line of race in America. These young men were convicted long before the trial, by a city blinded by fear and, equally, freighted by race. They were convicted because it was all too easy for people to see them as violent criminals simply because of the color of their skin." said Sarah Burns, who also wrote The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding (Knopf, 2011). "Ultimately The Central Park Five is about human dignity. It is about five young men who lose their youth but maintain their dignity in the face of a horrific and unimaginable situation." said David McMahon.

The 8th annual MIBFF will take place from September 19 to 30, 2012, and is presented by Global Montreal.

ABOUT THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL BLACK FILM FESTIVAL (MIBFF)
Presented by Global Montreal, the Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIBFF) was created in 2005 by the Fabienne Colas Foundation, anon-profit organization dedicated to promoting Cinema, Art and Culture. The mission of the MIBFF is to stimulate the development of the independent film industry and to showcase more films on the realities of Blacks from around the world. The Festival wants to promote a different kind of cinema, cinema that hails from here and from abroad and that does not necessarily have the opportunity to grace the big screen, groundbreaking cinema that moves us, that raises awareness and that takes us all by surprise! The MIBFF wants to deal with issues and present works that raise questions, that provoke, that make us smile, that leave us perplexed, that shock us... A fresh new look at black cinema from the four corners of the globe.

Review: "The Cabin in the Woods" Mixes New Ideas with Tired Cliches

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 75 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality/nudity
DIRECTOR: Drew Goddard
WRITERS: Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard
PRODUCER: Joss Whedon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Deming (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Lisa Lassek
COMPOSER: David Julyan

HORROR/COMEDY with elements of an action film

Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker, Tim DeZarn, Tim Lenk, and Sigourney Weaver

The Cabin in the Woods is a 2012 comedy horror film directed and co-written by Drew Goddard and produced and co-written by Joss Whedon. Whedon and Goddard worked together on Whedon’s television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel. The film focuses on five friends who visit a remote cabin in the woods where they get more than the fun they bargained for.

Dana Polk (Kristen Connolly), Curt Vaughan (Chris Hemsworth), Jules Louden (Anna Hutchison), Marty Mikalski (Fran Kranz), and the new guy, Holden McCrea (Jesse Williams), decide to take a break from school. The group travels to a remote area where there is a cabin owned by Curt’s cousin. They like the cabin’s rustic décor, but are surprised to find that the cellar is full of weird and bizarre odds and ends. They don’t know that their visit to the cabin in the woods has initiated something horrifying.

The Cabin in the Woods was filmed and completed back in 2009, but its release was delayed by the financial troubles of MGM. Lionsgate purchased the film and gave it a wide release in April 2012. I mention that the film is a little over three-years-old because Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard apparently wrote The Cabin in the Woods’ screenplay as a response to the “torture porn” horror film genre.

This kind of scary movie has been popular for the past several years, although its popularity seems to have peaked about three or four years ago. The genre’s most famous examples would be the Hostel and Saw film franchises. Torture porn isn’t the big horror movie thing anymore because it was surpassed by something new. Now, it’s demonic possession movies, especially films featuring possessed white girls. In the real world, white girls get snatched up by strangers. In the movie world, demons snatch their asses.

Anyway, as is to be expected of anything from two of the big Buffy/Angel guys, The Cabin in the Woods is fun and funny, and it also has a clever concept. However, the film never really seems to reach its potential; it’s as if Whedon and Goddard came up with an idea that deserved something bigger than what they planned for it. It is almost a good slasher movie; not quite developed enough to be a supernatural evil movie; and a slight misfire as a strange science fiction and H.P. Lovecraft-type weird horror movie.

Still, The Cabin in the Woods is funny, strange, and clever enough to be a welcome change for horror movie fans. Maybe, the film is such a novelty that its tricks could not work a second time, but for the most part, they work this first time.

6 of 10
B

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

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Paramount Helps You Make Your Own "Paranormal Activity"

Paramount Pictures and Ptch App Give Fans the Ability to Create Paranormal Activity Styled Multimedia Vignettes

Users Can Now Add Filters, Images and Sounds Inspired from Paranormal Activity to Create their Own Found Footage Videos to Share with Friends

Fans Can Share Paranormal Activity Inspired Videos for a Chance to Win Tickets to See Paranormal Activity 4 Before it Opens

Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, Inc., has teamed up with iPhone app Ptch (pronounced “pitch”) to give fans of the upcoming Paranormal Activity 4 an exciting new way to interact with the popular horror franchise. Starting today, Ptch app users will have the ability to integrate filters, sounds, clips and images from all four Paranormal Activity movies into their own videos and share them with friends on Ptch, Facebook, Twitter and email. This unique promotion with Ptch is the first time fans are able to add the films’ terrifying style into their own videos using Ptch. Paranormal Activity 4 opens in theaters nationwide on October 19, 2012.

Starting today, fans that create and share their own Paranormal Activity inspired vignettes could win tickets to be among the first to see Paranormal Activity 4 in their local theater, as well as, other movie merchandise. Winners will be chosen from a variety of categories including Most Popular (i.e. most shares, likes and views), Scariest, Most Realistic, and Most Tense. The contest will be open to U.S. residents ages 17 and older and will run until October 10, 2012. For full details and restrictions, see Official Rules (http://www.paranormalmovie.com/ptch/). No purchase necessary.

“Ptch was designed to empower the creative storyteller in everyone”, said Ed Leonard, CEO of Ptch. “I’m super excited to see what Paranormal Activity fans create using our new Paranormal Activity style that captures the fun and intensity of the films, and delivers it to user’s photos and videos.”

Launched in July 2012 and born out of DreamWorks Animation, Ptch’s iPhone app platform allows users to quickly and easily compose multimedia mash-ups up to 60 seconds in length using photos, videos and music from their iPhones and social feeds. The Paranormal Activity style gives users the ability to create found footage inspired vignettes with their iPhone camera through exclusive filters, creepy sounds and bone-chilling images into their Ptches. The Paranormal Activity style automatically recognizes if clips and images are shot in the daytime or at night, and integrates the appropriate filter. The style seamlessly integrates the jump cuts, graininess, and terrifying images from the film franchise, into users' Ptches, to create frighteningly textured vignettes from their photos and videos. These ptches can be easily shared with friends on Ptch and other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The app also provides links for users to purchase films from the Paranormal Activity franchise.

The Ptch app is available for iPhone 4, 4S and 5 devices, as well as the iPod and iPad, and is free to download now in the Apple App Store.

About Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. Paramount controls a collection of some of the most powerful brands in filmed entertainment, including Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, ParamountVantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Famous Productions, ParamountHome Media Distribution, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., and Paramount Studio Group.

About Ptch
Ptch is the new iPhone app that lets you easily create and share personalized multimedia compositions using the video, photos, and music from your mobile device and social feeds. Making and sharing Ptches is fun, fast and social. Based in Glendale, California, Ptch is privately held and backed by DreamWorks Animation. (www.ptch.com) (@officialPtch)

Review: "Surf's Up" Has Impressive Animation

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 136 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Surf’s Up (2007) – computer animation
Running time: 85 minutes (1 hour, 25 minutes)
MPAA – PG for mild language and some rude humor
DIRECTORS: Ash Brannon and Chris Buck
WRITERS: Don Rhymer and Ash Brannon and Chris Buck and Christopher Jenkins; from a story by Christopher Jenkins and Christian Darren with Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse
PRODUCER: Christopher Jenkins
EDITORS: Ivan Bilancio and Nancy Frazen
Academy Award nominee

ANIMATION/COMEDY/SPORTS with elements of drama

Starring: (voices) Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, James Woods, Diedrich Bader, Mario Cantone, Brian Posehn, and Dana Belben

The subject of this movie review is Surf’s Up, a 2007 computer-animated film directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck. The film is a mock documentary or “mockumentary” (with This is Spinal Tap being the most famous example). It was one of three 2007 films to receive best animated feature Oscar nominations (a category Ratatouille won).

A documentary film crew follows a young penguin who loves to surf in Surf’s Up, the computer-animated film from Sony Pictures Animation (Open Season) which takes the notion that penguins invented surfing.

Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf) is not like the other penguins in Shiverpool, Antarctica. He’d rather surf than process fish all day. Opportunity arrives when he talks his way into the Big Z Memorial Surf-Off, an international surf tournament named in memory of Cody’s idol, the legendary surfing penguin, Zeke “Big Z” Topanga.

When Cody arrives on Pen Gu Island, he realizes that he doesn’t really fit in very well because he is a small wave surfer in a big wave event. He quickly earns the ire of a mouthy surfing promoter, a hedgehog named Reggie Belafonte (James Woods), and the 9-time reigning champion, the utterly arrogant penguin Tank “The Shredder” Evans (Diedrich Bader). Cody does manage to make a fast friend in Chicken Joe (Jon Heder), a surfing rooster from Michigan, and also attract the attention of sexy lifeguard, Lani Aliikai (Zooey Deschanel). However, it’s when he meets the mysterious Geek (Jeff Bridges), a reclusive penguin who lives on the other side of the island that Cody learns there is more to discover in surfing than just how to win a tournament.

Although on the surface it resembles leftovers from the Oscar-winning computer-animated hit, Happy Feet (2006), Surf’s Up is actually a good film on its own. It is an entertaining comedy that not only has some really cool surfing scenes, but also has a nice message about friendship. Shia LaBeouf and Jeff Bridges have excellent chemistry, which may be due to the fact that the voice actors recorded their dialogue together in one room – a rarity in feature film animation. As the burnt-out, but wise teacher, Geek, and his stubborn pupil, Cody, Bridges and LaBeouf respectively add solid dramatic weight and traction to the characters’ relationship with their voice performances. Each actor brings both gentle sarcasm and humor to their roles, but they both know when to add a somber touch when the story calls for it.

As for the rest of the cast: Jon Heder manages to seem fresh, although even here he is pretty much playing the same kind of goofy dude part he’s been repeatedly playing for the last three years. Zooey Deschanel is always a nice presence – somehow managing to add a touch of sweetness to any film in which she appears. James Woods is shrill and his character, Reggie Belafonte, is way more annoying than he needs to be.

The aforementioned surfing scenes are surprisingly good – a testament to how supernaturally skilled these programmers, software guys, and animators who make computer-animated films are. That they make the surfing look so good with penguins on the surf boards adds to the amazement.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, November 10, 2007

NOTES:
2008 Academy Awards: 1nomination: “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year” (Ash Brannon and Chris Buck)

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