Brandon Pence

The Nightmare on Elm Street remake was pretty much shit. Jackie Earl Haley wasn’t terrible as Freddy and I liked the addition of Freddy being a child rapist but the movie never had the scary feel the original had, or the feeling of desperation. It seemed once it was revealed that Nancy was his first victim he was just counting down to her so it made all the other characters feel doomed from the beginning. Not even any interesting kills although the gore caused by his glove is considerably more brutal in 2010. Overall… nothing memorable. Haley’s serious, non-joking Freddy was a solid attempt but the rest of the film didn’t hold up much.

Altitude was a weird movie. It’s about these kids on a plane and the plane enters a big cloud and they seemingly enter another dimension; being picked off one by one by a giant tentacled monster in the sky. Yep. It’s that kinda movie. They sorta have it make sense however if you pay attention in the beginning, you can pretty much write the rest of the movie exactly how it happens. No big twists or anything. It wasn’t a terrible film but it’s far from great.

I just got back from seeing the much-hyped film, The Social Network. As of this writing, there are 154 critic reviews of it on rottentomatoes.com… and it sits with a 98% approval rating. To put that in perspective the often over-hyped Inception is at 87% and The Dark Knight is at 93%.

Is it that good?

It’s not the same kind of film as The Dark Knight at all; but I’d say its up there. Legit.

Fincher has been one of my favorite directors as long as I can remember. He makes dark, serious films that are often dialog driven and make the viewer think. The Social Network is no different.

When I first heard about The Social Network being made, I thought “big deal.” A movie about Facebook, woohoo. Most documentary-type controversy films are made years after the product or person is out of the public mind; however millions still use Facebook daily. So could it possibly have a conclusion? It does. However for the longest time I thought “who gives a shit” about a Facebook film.

I knew I would see the movie the minute the score was touched on. Fincher tapped Nine Inch Nails founder and front man Trent Reznor to produce a score for the film after hearing NiN’s “Ghosts” album; an open source, free to all instrumental album full of experimental soundscapes. The first time I heard the Ghosts album I knew it would either be a movie soundtrack or Reznor would be tapped for such a job. I even tried to get a video project I was working on to use the Ghosts album but I was told I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Reznor’s score is not at all the heavy industrial Nine Inch Nails sound most people are familiar with when they hear his name. Instead its melodic piano and ambient electronic music very similar to songs like “The Frail” and “Just Like You Imagined.” The film opens with the main character and his girlfriend discussing his academic future. When that scene ends we are taken to the credit screen and its there that the score sets the tone for the rest of the film. The main character simply walking home is all we’re shown; but the music weaves the tale to come. Reznor did an amazing job and I hope we see him scoring more films in the future.

The story itself is great and masterfully told. Through a series of flash forwards and flash backs we are told the entire story of Facebook; from concept to its current state. There are no Farmville jokes or anything like that; the film does have a light tone at times, but it’s always witty, smart and intriguing.

It’s also arguably the biggest Hollywood film ever to treat programmers with some sort of respect. Rather than making up “hacking” terms, the movie explains what he did in the beginning in very accurate precision that is not only logical, but functional. It’s things like this that treat the audience intelligently.

The movie is funny, smart, witty, thrilling and quite dramatic. The cast from beginning to end is spot on.

There has been some discussion where I work about whether the film is true or not. My boss claimed today that Zuckerburg said none of it is true.

Having seen the film, I wouldn’t be surprised if 100% of it was true. There are no deus ex machinas; there is no coincidence or major improbable situation. The film is grounded and logical and based on court records and his past interviews, I’m sure lots of this film is true.

Is that a bad thing? Does Zuckerburg look bad?

No. He doesn’t come off as an evil villain at all. He comes off exactly as what he is: a 20 year old billionaire. He’s human. He’s flawed. He doesn’t understand the power he has.

Overall I definitely recommend it. I want to see it again very badly just to soak it all in again. An amazingly quick 2 hours, I highly recommend checking it out.

My coworker Todd Stevenson and I saw the trailer for Frozen a few months back and it piqued my interest. The trailer reminded me a lot of Open Water which is both a good and bad thing. I loved the desperate, isolated feel of Open Water but I didn’t like the movie itself. I mostly blame this on the reason I saw the film… the Saw trailer. I was really into Saw before the first film even came out. Reading the synopsis online, seeing pictures and reading interviews made me desperate for any Saw footage at all. The first time the Saw trailer was available was with Open Water; and it wasn’t available online yet so I went and saw Open Water purely to see the Saw trailer. I remember going to the Sun Plaza theatre in Fort Walton Beach opening night to see Open Water… and being one of two people in the entire auditorium… and the Saw trailer was so intriguingly shocking and violent that it was far better to me at the time than the entire Open Water film.

So I was interested in Frozen because I did like the isolated feel of Open Water and I think you can do more with the Frozen concept than you could with the Open Water one… and I was right.

I will stay away from spoilers in this review.

I enjoyed Frozen completely. The 3 main characters have great synergy from the get go. The movie also covers a lot of the “Why didn’t they…” or “Wouldn’t they have…” scenarios completely and actually cleverly. In most films they have to have the scene where the characters exclaim to us that their cell phone has no signal or that the battery is dead. Frozen handles all of these scenarios convincingly, realistically and intelligently. There aren’t any scenes where the characters virtually talk directly to the audience just to fill in future plot holes; you find yourself in the film wondering “Why don’t they…” and then you catch yourself and remember an earlier scene where that thing was addressed very casually and discreetly.

This says a lot about how good the writing is.

The movie is completely carried by the actors and the writing. There is very little in the way of scenery, gore, or special effects here. Everything is very minimal and relies on the huge things that can kill a movie; the acting and the writing.

As the movie progresses and shit goes down (and shit most definitely goes down in this movie) the acting and writing get progressively heavier but also more relate-able. The dialogs characters have in incredibly dramatic situations rings true as to the same dialog or conflict you would have in the situation. None of the drama ever feels forced or artificial. This helps suck the viewer in like a two thousand dollar whore.

I really found myself connecting to the characters and truly not wanting to see what was going to happen next. This is where the whole “Drama Vs Horror” thing comes into play. I’ve heard the film described as both a thriller/drama and a horror film… and I think it belongs under horror. I have always found that an effective horror movie makes me fear what’s going to happen to the characters next or turn away out of fear of what will happen. Horror, to me, isn’t Freddy Kruger killing people by slamming them into walls while pinball sound effects play and he says “Tilt.” I don’t know what I would call that but its far from horrifying; its more comedic. If I am rooting for the killer then it isn’t horror to me.

I literally turned away in one scene during Frozen and was still disturbed by the sound effects. I don’t know if it was because my apartment was colder than usual or the movie itself but there were several scenes in Frozen where I felt genuine chills. That to me is horror. When I am genuinely afraid what will happen to the characters and don’t want to see them harmed. If the characters are intentionally written to be annoying and I am actively rooting for them to die in terrible ways then its not horror.

The special effects and make up definitely deserve a nod as well. The characters get increasingly more damaged by the weather and it’s very convincingly done and disturbing over the course of the film. There are no scenes where you as the viewer are meant to ooh and aah at the gore; the very minimal amount of gore in this film is handled in a serious tone, in a realistic way and effectively. The gore enhances the tension in the film which is how it should be.

Overall I thought Frozen was a great film. I don’t know how good it would be on multiple viewings but if you turn down the AC in your place and give this movie a chance I think it will disturb you as well.