Big Trouble in Little China

Haven't seen this in years, and really enjoyed refamiliarising myself. I was not so happy about Lo Pan frightening the shit out of me after so long, but they crazify him so much that you cannot look at him and not feel ill.

Anyway, I miss these kinds of movies.

Blindness (2008)

This has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. I had great hopes after hearing how revered the Saramago story was. I really wanted to read it before watching it, but couldn't get hold of the book, so dove in anyway.

Oh, it was terrible. I remember Steve and I had reason after reason for disliking it. Can't think of any two months later. Horrible film.

Zombie Honeymoon

Stupid, but watchable in a stupid way.

Scanners

It's so fun to revisit the classics. This isn't the greatest movie ever, but it's just so cool. I remember watching it when I was a kid and thinking I was so grown up that I got it, and that I understood it. Obviously, I didn't. I still kinda don't. But it's like an old friend. Just saying hey now and again. I remember you, Head-Exploding-Friend.

Again, they just don't make movies like this anymore.

The Rocker (2008)

Another one with high expectations. I thought it was going to be more a stupid cmedy and less a teen/family drama, but I think those latter aspects saved it from being, well, obvious.

I just laughed every time Dwight did something stupid, which was at least once every two minutes, and that makes for a good time. I watch stuff like this because I want to laugh. I'm so glad when it works. I can't see myself going back to this over ad over like Zoolander or Night at the Roxbury, but for an evening, it was a good, hearty laugh.

Good music, too.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Here's my review of the book:

First book down for the year. I've started on a high note, too, with a book that quite literally kept me up nights thinking about just how it's author successfully mixed such graphic images and sweet-natured romance. Okay, so, it was the images of plasma-leaking eyeballs and bodies in bathtubs that had me jumping at every midnight noise, but still ...

The gist: Oskar feels the rage of any bullied schoolkid, fantisizing about getting his own back against the baddies in putrid, violent ways. Eli moves in next door, and her first encounter with Oskar is following one of his fantasy attacks. Eli is an outsider, too, and she and Oskar forge a connection. Eli, we learn, is a vampire, and her caretaker, Hakan, exists to satisfy her bloody needs. He kills for her and is eventually caught, leaving Eli all alone, and in need. Oskar and Eli get closer, while Eli's "influence" on the community gets a bit, well ... out of control. And there's much more going on -- bullies wanting revenge, kids wanting guidance, a dead man with a acid-burned face refusing to stay down. It's so heavily layered that as each story nears it's end, the tension becomes almost unbearable as they begin to converge.

This is a horror story and a love story. And the blending of those elements is very clever, if not slightly schizophrenic. There were moments I felt bile rising in my throat, closing the book and my eyes to shake away some ultra-confronting images. Other times, though, I dropped my cynical shoulders and sat back in awe as Lindqvist's characters so valiantly declared love through unthinkable acts of loyalty. Loyalty is probably at the heart of the story, love and horror aside. Characters risk their lives to help one another, enter dangerous situations to save one another, kill to be closer to each other.

And while vampires abound, the book does not feel like a supernatural tale. Lindqvist recreated his life in 1981 Blackeberg, and comments frequently on the political and social climates, the social concerns of a small town, and some alternative family structures (two key characters in the book, Oskar and Tommy, do not have fathers at home). There's a reality to the story, even if Sweden itself has an otherworldy air for an outsider like myself, that makes you believe vampires exist here, brought in to shake up the middling status quo. All romanticised vampire lore is scrapped for the very basics, and so Eli's struggle feels real. We're not sidetracked by garlic necklaces and stakes through hearts -- she lives and dies, for the most part, as we do, and because of this, we feel for her even as she bites into the necks of characters we come to love.

I grabbed the book because I was so gripped by the movie trailer. And I'm so happy I did that as the film, which I watched almost as soon as I finished reading, centres itself so firmly on Oskar and Eli that those layers I mentioned pretty much don't exist. The film is beautiful, though I found it slightly flawed (Hakan's character remains almost unexplained, for instance). Its beauty has much to do with its portrayal of Oskar and Eli's relationship. I worried that due to their ages, their romance might not translate so well, but it does.

School of Rock

Just revisiting a classic.

Stuck (2008)

Um... so it started out as a weird drama about a man about to lose everything an a woman with few cares in the world who collide rather horribly.

It winds up a slapstick comedy about the girl and her boyfriend trying to keep the homeless man from escaping the hole in the windscreen of her car where he resides.

They say it's based on a true story. Bizarre. It's quite brutal, funny at times, but ultimately says and does very little.

Taken (2008)

A really, really good thriller. Working at the video store, I don't think I remember a single film so universally praised. Everybody loved this film. I think it had to do with the straightforward storytelling. Here's a man in a desperate situation who goes to fix it.

Personally, I enjoyed watching Liam Neeson kick mega-ass.

Passengers (2008)

Shudder. The first movie of the year and it was lame. A sign of things to come? Let's hope not.