Movies in My Life Lately #1

I watch a lot of movies over the week. I also make my own movies. So I decided it might be a good idea to get a column going where I can sum things up from a particularly busy week of movie watching and movie making.

This past week I watched all the movies from A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Collection that I had not previously seen (I had already seen A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Dream Warriors (Part 3), and Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Part 7)). My favorite that I watched was Freddy's Revenge (which I featured in the Cult Corner last week). My least favorite was Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Part 6) which was pretty terrible in every way. The Dream Master (Part 4) was a disappointing follow up to The Dream Warriors. I hate that they disposed of the remaining Dream Warriors in the manner that they did. The story was confusing and didn't make much sense. I was surprised, however, at how much I enjoyed that film's follow up: The Dream Child (Part 5). The stalk sequences were inspired, the gothic settings great and Stephen Hopkins' direction was visually exciting. It's a shame that the film was a bomb... it was much better than the successful Dream Master was.

Overall, the series was fun to catch up on and I'm glad that I have finally added it to my film collection.

I recently got Netflix Watch Instantly so I've been watching a lot of movies I normally wouldn't watch. I saw that the panned remake of The Stepfather was on it so, on a particularly boring day, I sat down and gave it a watch.

This movie is pretty bad, which is to be expected. It's not scary (you can see the jump scares coming from a million miles away) and, every time Dylan Walsh tries to be crazy and menancing, it's completely laughable and over the top. Also, the movie seems obsessed with having actress Amber Heard be in either her underwear or a skimpy bikini in literally every single scene she is in (not neccesarily a bad thing but after a while it became glaring that the director liked shooting her this way).

Still, I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time. I get a certain amount of enjoyment in watching bad horror movies and I can say I got that same amount of enjoyment out of watching this one. There's nothing special about it but it's not the absolute worst way you could spend an hour and a half.

Rating: 3/10

I also finally saw The Coen Brother's much lauded A Serious Man this week. I really wanted to love this movie but, after much thought, I can't say that I did. The film showcased that The Coens are indeed brilliant filmmakers and know how to shoot the mess out of a movie. Visually, the movie is great and has some great pacing. However, I didn't like the story and could not stand the characters. I know that this intentional to an extent-- after all, this is a black comedy. Still, I disliked them to the point where I really wanted to turn the movie off at times.

The movie deals with Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is a college physics proffessor dealing with a lot problems: review by the tenure committee, his pot smoking son Danny's bar mitzvah, being bribed by a Korean-American student, the threat of divorce by his wife Judith (who is leaving him for his friend Sy Abelman), and the ongoing encroachment of brother Arthur and his sebaceous cyst.

In a sense, the film works as a modern day retelling of the story of Job. Larry is being put through some major problems and doesn't understand why God is letting this happen to him. He seeks help and understanding from many rabbis but to no real avail.

While the film's hopeless and grating characters turned me off, I have to admit that the movie really made me think (I actually haven't stopped thinking about it since I watched it on Saturday) and displayed why the Coens are great filmmakers. A few sequences really stood out as great pieces of filmmaking. One was the opening sequence. The opening is an old Yiddish folk tale shot in 1:33:1 aspect ratio that tells a story that doesn't really have anything to do with the story told after the opening credits (at least, at first glance-- there are many theories on the Internet on what this has to do with the rest of the movie). The sequence is haunting, funny and kind of gets under your skin. You can watch it here if you interested.

The other sequence that really caught my eye is the story of the Goy's Teeth by one of the rabbis to Larry. This scene really sums up the film quite well and is a blast to watch. It is set brilliantly to Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" and showcases why the Coens are great at directing. Please watch it here.

Still, I really couldn't get into most of the movie because I didn't really like the characters or care much about their plight. Because of that, I can't give the movie a high rating, no matter how well it was directed, shot and edited.

Rating: 6/10

I also spent a lot of the week working on my own film work. I just finished my second television commercial for Mississippi's Southern Fried Comic Con. The Con lasts from June 26-27 and takes place at the Cabot Lodge in Jackson, MS. The commercial features original music by David Tigrett and narration by Jay Long. You can watch my commercial below.

Well that's been my week with film. Hope you all enjoyed reading about it.