joy_lamoya Reviews

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

Get ready to crack in a enjoyable bloodfest

[8/10 · 17 June 2011]

Slather films don't really care about the reason of murders just for the sake of gore. This film does the exact same thing in the most hilarious way: A bunch of teens are dying in the woods for just no reason at all, and Tucker and Dale (the sweet and utterly confused main characters, played by Labine and Tudyk) are just freaked about how sick it is.

My absolute favorite character was Jesse Moss' Chad, whose sanity and logical thinking went for a walk in the forest and never came back. You see this guy just loosing it, running through the woods with an axe and you can't help but to compare him to a non-French Beauty and the Beast's Gaston. I hadn't heard of Labine before, but he had me the second he tried to pick up Allison in the gas station, like a giant teddy bear. I always love how Tudyk delivers just the amount of acting you need to know he's just plain awesome. Together, they were brilliant.

It just looks bad, the FX are not ever there and still is genius. You can't help to laugh out loud! Just plain and bloody funny, with emphasis in bloody.

Cougars Inc. (2011)

Wow, didn't see that coming.

[8/10 · 17 June 2011]

Maybe the posters where made shallow and uninteresting on purpose. Maybe the name of the movie was intended to be just plain. I won't lie; I thought it was going to be a shallowness festival in the form of a strange spin-off of a 'Fitch trying to score Stiffler's Mom' film. I was pleased to see it wasn't.

The movie has a strange timing that's sort of uncomfortable in the first ten-fifteen minutes, but once you get used to it and you find out the reason of the strange configuration of the movie (It's just a bunch of notes of a quite too smart teen), you can go with it. I really end up liking it, it make sense to me how it was told. It's not pretentious, it is what it is.

Performances where nice: Kyle Gallner, in the skin of witty and kind of sweet Sam, fits perfect in this casually messy kid who finally finds his place in the world and will do anything to stay in his little personal paradise. In addition, his chemistry with James Belushi and Kathryn Morris is not forced at all. Belushi plays the role of cool school teacher with elegance, and accomplished some nice moments just by staying quiet and staring into others' eyes like trying to figure them out. I love Denise Richards too: She's not trying to be nice, but you end up kind of liking her.

It's classy and nice when it could be a mess, and way better that what it seems. Just like Sam learned in the movie, not everything is what it looks like, and this film certainly isn't.

Black Swan (2010)

Don't push it!

[4/10 · 17 June 2011]

You can love or hate Black Swan, but certainly it won't be just another movie. I have to give that to the director, who tries hard (REALLY hard) to show a very sick girl in some sort of beautiful light.

Personally, I found the movie too self-aware and pretentious, pushing the buttons of this unstable main character (Nina, played by Portman) in such an obvious way that it's almost annoying. Sure, a huge amount of pseudo-intellectual viewers are going to find it genius, but in the end, Aronosfky just directed a very elegant version of Saw.

Nina was sick to begin with, pressure didn't crack her at all. We don't have a story; we have a train wreck. Portman did an awesome job like most of the cast of the movie, but the plots urge of being a masterpiece just ruined it from the beginning. The movie shouts out loud 'I'm cooler than you and you should praise me for that'. I'm not sure if it is the script or the directing, but someone is trying just too hard.

Photography was beautiful in a green-ish kind of way. It's cold and uncomfortable in the beginning, but it gives a nice atmosphere for the concept. The screen just lightens up when Kunis (playing Lily, Nina's fellow dancer) appears: She's just a breath of fresh air in a suffocating movie. I'm guessing that that's the idea, but you know, not even a great performances can save a film that lacks humbleness.

Season of the Witch (2011)

It could be a LOT worse!

[6/10 · 15 June 2011]

Let's be honest. I don't care of historic accuracy in a witchcraft/exorcism movie, or any fantasy movie at all. That's not the flaw of 'Season of the Witch' at all.

Acting is good, overall. Cage's slow pace character is perfectly matched by Perlman's job, in the skin of a guy that doesn't quite fit with the movie atmosphere but gives it a certain kind of charm. I was surprised by Foy's performance and versatility that smoothly turns this sweet chick in evil vixen in a cage. So, they are not the problem.

Either is the plot: The movie started out well for me, between crusaders putting the laugh in slaughter and angry vicars killing women, both in the name of God and greater good. Later, the crusaders had a reality check and leave the life of indiscriminate murder of enemy to arrive to a village haunted by a mortal plague supposedly brought by a witch. This ends up sending them to a trip to a monastery. All the storyline could be great, but the issue is how it was told.

It's just odd. You don't understand in any point of the movie if you're watching a thriller, a historical epic or a fantasy movie. It's a strange mix of all, but lacking the best of them. There're certain incoherences in the script (Why does Anna save Kay in the bridge? How could every book be burned but the original copy was saved?), but it doesn't even compare to the vague directing and the strange shots through the forest. Sceneries are beautiful, sure, but it sucks that you can't appreciate them: Photography is so dark that you loose good part of the action, and, in my opinion, was one of the worst parts of the movie, altogether with the effects at the ending.

Anyways, it could be a lot worse, so I don't really regret watching it. It's not a masterpiece, but seriously, I wasn't expecting one.