Halloween 2012: Instawatch Options

And now, as promised, the Netflix Instawatch options.  Once again I’ve mixed in some previously-reviewed movies with the new ones, and given each a Creep Factor on a scale from one to five:  one being good fun and not super scary and five being SLEEP WITH A BASEBALL BAT IN ONE HAND AND A FLASHLIGHT IN THE OTHER.

Audition:  1999 Japanese psychological horror film directed by Takashi Miike and starring Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina.  Aoyama is a lonely middle-aged widower whose film-producer friend comes up with the brilliant idea to stage a fake movie audition to find him a new wife.  Aoyama is immediately taken with Asami, a seemingly sweet and sympathetic young woman.  His friend becomes concerned when he can’t track down any of her references, but Aoyama brushes him off and decides to pursue her anyway.  Cut to Asami waiting for him to call, intensely concentrating on her phone, sitting near a burlap sack that contains her latest victim.  Bum bum BUMMMMMM!

Rob Zombie and Eli Roth found it difficult to watch, if that’s any indication.  It’s toe-curling, pull-a-blanket-up-to-your-chin, nausea-inducing scary.  This link takes you to a brief video summary from Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments – it contains spoilers which could ruin the movie for you, but if you can’t get through these three minutes then the full movie would probably be too much for you.  Watch at your own risk.

Creep Factor: 5

Candyman:  1992 horror film directed by Bernard Rose and starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Xander Berkeley.  Helen is a spunky grad student researching urban legends in Chicago, and when she hears about a local boogeyman living in the Cabrini-Green housing project she decides to check it out.  Say Candyman’s name five times while looking in the mirror, and he’ll appear.  And kill you.  So yeah, definitely do that.

                This is one of my favorite horror movies of all time.  It still scares the crap out of me 20 years after I first saw it.  The music by Philip Glass is spine-tingling, Tony Todd’s voice is both alluring and chilling; it’s a frightening film on both an auditory and visual level.  The plot isn’t very surprising, and the ending is a little hokey, but it’s definitely a good gory scare.

                Creep Factor: 4.5

Monsters:  2010 British sci-fi movie written, shot and directed by Gareth Edwards, and starring Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy.  Yes.  Scoot.  Areas of northern Mexico have been quarantined by the U.S. military because aliens crash-landed there, you know the drill.   A dashing and slightly unkempt photojournalist has been tasked with getting his boss’s daughter through the area and home to marry her boring fiancé.  Think Jurassic Park redux, kind of.  I must say, this + The African Queen + Apocalypse Now = no riverboat travel for me, thanks all the same.  It’s matter-of-fact, good pacing, the music is nice and low key, and the ending is unexpected and kind of perfect.  It’s a feel-good monster movie without being too touchy-feely-feel-good.  Very “real.”   Definitely see it.

                Creep Factor: 1

Battle Royale:  2000 Japanese thriller directed by Kinji Fukasaku and starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto and Takeshi Kitano.  Think Hunger Games but much darker, funnier and with a higher body count.  The Japanese government has decided that the youth need to learn fear and respect, so once a year an unsuspecting class of high school students is taken to an island where they’re forced to fight to the death.

                I really liked it.  It had the humor, wit and hipness that Hunger Games lacked, but didn’t quite have that level of unrequited teenage yearning some people prefer in their Teen Thunderdome movies.  So perhaps it’s not for everyone.

                Creep Factor: 2.5

Blood Creek:  2009 horror film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Michael Fassbender, Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill and Emma Booth.  Evan’s brother has been missing for a year when he shows up in the middle of the night looking like Castaway and insisting that his brother gather weapons and help him kill some family.  OKAY!  Turns out that the family who had been keeping him hostage were in turn being held hostage by a former Nazi occult specialist.  Who is now kind of literally a monster.  And has kept them sort of frozen in time since 1939.  It’s actually a pretty decent horror movie, and it’s not quite as ludicrous as the plot summary sounds.

                Creep Factor: 2.5

Black Death:  2010 historical horror movie by Christopher Smith; starring Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, and Carice van Houten.  Seriously, how did anyone survive the Middle Ages?  Osmund (Redmayne) is a monk who accompanies a group of soldiers on their journey to investigate rumors of a village that’s been miraculously untouched by The Plague.  Except of course it can’t be a miracle, right?  Gotta be a witch.  Only explanation.  They get to the village and things do indeed get witchy.  But is it the pagan villagers or the Christian soldiers who are in the right?  Oooooooh, interesting!

Why wasn’t this a bigger movie?  It’s totally good.  The accents are awesome, the action scenes are great, it’s morally ambiguous without getting too serious, and Bean pretty much has that whole medieval knight thing nailed.  Has a Wicker Man feel to it.  But with less naked singing.

Creep Factor: 2

Transsiberian:  2008 thriller directed by Brad Anderson and starring Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, Kate Mara, and Ben Kingsley.  Harrelson and Mortimer play Jessie and Roy, an American couple on a little adventure through Siberia.  Because doesn’t that sound like fun?  On the train they befriend Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Mara), a globetrotting couple that you instantly know will be trouble.  Suddenly people go missing, there’s an accidental death, and everyone’s being chased by Russian narcotics officers.  It is SO GOOD.  Nice to see Mortimer less buttoned-up, like that episode of 30 Rock when she drops accent and freaks out on Liz Lemon.  Lots of twists and turns.  Also, I might love Woody Harrelson now.  See it.

                Creep Factor: 2

Red White & Blue:  2010 thriller directed by Simon Rumley and starring with Amanda Fuller, Noah Taylor, and Marc Senter.  I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how to describe this without giving anything away.  It’s a brilliant, fucking scary, totally messed up thriller, and if you like scary movies then you should absolutely see it.  Just be prepared:  the music is really intense, and within the first ten minutes you’ll see the main character sleep with five guys and take two I-hate-myself showers--there’s a point to it, it perfectly sets the tone of the movie and the character, trust me.  It’s violent, but not overly gory . . . well, you’re spared the moment of impact anyway.  At least until the climax.  No one is a good guy. 

                Creep Factor: 4

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil:  2010 Canadian horror/comedy directed by Eli Craig and starring Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, and Katrina Bowden.  Tudyk and Labine are Tucker and Dale, two buddies working on their vacation cabin in West Virginia.  A group of college kids decide to camp nearby and due to a series of mishaps, coincidences, and perhaps seeing Deliverance a time too many, the kids start to believe that Tucker and Dale are backwoods psychos intent on murdering them all.  This theory is reinforced when they start dying off in freak accidents.  Think Shawn of the Dead, but with hillbillies instead of zombies.  I’m sorry, that’s insensitive.  I believe we prefer the term “yokel.”  It was hilarious, definitely see it.

                Creep Factor: 0.5

This isn't what it looks like.

The Last Exorcism:  2010 “found footage” horror film directed by Daniel Stamm and starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Louis Herthum, and Caleb Landry Jones.  Reverend Cotton Marcus is a slick, charming preacher who used to perform exorcisms, and is now on a mission to debunk them.  He and his film crew travel to a remote area of Louisiana to document how he heals a supposedly possessed girl by tricking her with lights and sound effects and sleights of hand into thinking she’s being cured.  But could she actually be possessed?  And if not, can his smoke-and-mirrors routine really help her?

          I liked this immediately.  It’s clever, and even though we’re all past the Blair Witch found footage crap I didn’t mind it at all.  It should be noted that I do not scare easily.  I jump in my seat now and then, but it takes a hell of a movie to really freak me out, and this definitely did.  Right up until the WTF ending, that is, which was so hokey and stupid that it killed the mood so carefully set by the first hour and a half of the movie.  That being said, had it not taken that route, I would probably avoid rural areas and farms and woods and the dark for a long time.

                Creep Factor: 4

Trollhunter:  2010 Norwegian fantasy “found footage” horror-ish film directed by Andre Ovredal and starring Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck.  A group of students are trying to make a documentary about a man they think is a bear poacher, when they fall into the world of the Troll Security Service, a secret government agency protecting humans from trolls and vice-versa.  HOLY SHIT LET’S VISIT NORWAY!  I’ll be honest, I spent much of the movie distracted by the amazing landscapes.  It's really good, I just wish the trolls were less cartoonish. 

                Creep Factor: 1.5

The Faculty:  1998 sci fi horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring a brilliantly diverse cast: Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Bebe Neuwirth, Piper Laurie (the mom from Carrie), Famke Janssen, Usher, Salma Hayek and Jon Stewart.  Outstanding.

                A Breakfast Club-like group of teenagers think a weird little creature they found on the football field is somehow turning everyone into pod people.  And so the intelligent misfit, the prom queen, the nerd, the misanthropic jock, the sweet Southern-belle new girl and the goth chick will have to work together to save their town from the alien invaders.

                It’s suspenseful, not really scary.  I mostly love it for the cramazing casting, the humor and slight campiness.

                Creep Factor: 1.5

Demon Knight:  1995 Tales from the Crypt horror film directed by Ernest Dickerson and starring Billy Zane, Jada Pinkett Smith, Thomas Haden Church, William Sadler and CCH Pounder.  A drifter rolls into a boarding house in a remote town, with a dashing demon hot on his trail.  Soon the residents are caught in a stand-off between the drifter, who is actually a servant of God, and an army of demonic creatures.

                This isn’t a good movie, really.  I just watched it a lot in high school and it sort of stuck with me.  It’s gory and ridiculous and not scary, but it’s a funny little something to watch around the holiday.

                Creep Factor: 2, mostly for the gore.

Killer Clowns From Outer Space:  1988 comedy/horror movie by the Chiodo Brothers, starring Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder.  Clown-aliens come to Earth and start killing off the population of a small town by, like, wrapping them in cotton candy.  It’s ludicrous, funny, the acting is campy and over the top.  I would recommend it for a laugh.

                Creep Factor: 0.5, unless you’re coulrophobic.

Dracula 2000:  2000 horror film directed by Patrick Lussier.  Check the line-up and tell me you’re not intrigued:  Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Esposito, Gerard Butler, Jonny Lee Miller, Omar Epps, Jeri Ryan and VITAMIN FREAKING C.  Vitamin C is in this movie.  Fun fact: Vitamin C also starred in the original Hairspray as Amber Von Tussle, the bratty nemesis of Tracy Turnblad.  Crazy, right?

                Anyway, yes, the plot:  it’s Dracula.  But in the year 2000.  He’s returned after a long imprisonment to stalk some depressed chick who works at a Virgin Megastore.  Sure, there’s a decent amount of action and an interesting biblical twist that slightly redeems it.  But really it’s completely ridiculous and silly and one of my favorite guilty-pleasure Halloween movies.

Halloween 2012, part 1

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Rather than doing a standard Top Ten-esque Halloween post, I thought I’d cover some of my favorite less-overexposed horror movies and thrillers; those that wouldn’t necessarily come to mind when thinking of Halloween options.  I’ve mixed in some previously-reviewed movies with the new ones, and given each a Creep Factor on a scale from one to five:  one being good fun and not super scary and five being SLEEP WITH THE DAMN LIGHTS ON.

I’m starting with movies that are not currently on Netflix Instawatch, and may take some time to find online elsewhere.  Next week I’ll have the Instawatch options.

28 Days Later:  2002 British zombie horror film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns and Christopher Eccleston.  Jim wakes up from a coma to find the hospital, and seemingly all of London, totally abandoned.  OR IS IT?  While Jim was conked out some sort of anger virus (stay with me) has turned most of England’s inhabitants into zombies—not the shuffling, lazy variety.  These things are wicked fast and manic, like 2010 Lakers fans on PCP.  He’s saved by a still-human couple, and they eventually start making their way to the source of a radio signal promising the cure to infection.  OR IS IT?

It’s a great movie, period; not just a great horror movie.  It’s dark but occasionally sweet and funny, it’s scary and keeps you guessing.  Side note:  Don’t bother with the sequel.  Despite the decent cast it’s really not worth it.

Creep Factor:  4

Copycat:  1995 thriller directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney and Harry Connick, Jr.  Helen Hudson is a criminal psychologist with a unique gift for profiling serial killers, who is severely agoraphobic after a traumatizing attack by a former patient.  She now mostly gets drunk and pops pills, relying heavily on her caretaker and the interwebs to keep her connected to the outside world.  When two detectives land a serial killer case, they form an uneasy alliance with Helen to catch him.

                  It’s suspenseful and interesting, Hunter and Weaver are hilarious in their eccentricities, HCJ is creepy as hell.

Creep Factor: 3.

The Descent:  2005 British horror film directed by Neil Marshall and starring Natalie Mendoza, Shauna Macdonald, and a slew of other adorable European actresses.  Juno and Beth organize a caving trip with their college friends in an effort to cheer up their friend Sara, who is reeling from the death of her husband and daughter.   The girls think they’re going on a nice, easy jaunt through an Appalachian cave system (can you hear the ominous plinking of banjos?), but unbeknownst to them Juno has planned a much more adventurous route through an unmapped cave.  Their spelunking becomes increasingly more dangerous after a cave-in blocks their way back, and that’s when Sara starts to see shadows moving in the darkness.  It provides fantastical monster scares along with very real claustrophobia scares.  It’s gory and creepy and tense, and I think it’s great, even though the ending kind of sucks.

                  Creep Factor: 4

Pan’s Labyrinth:  2006 dark fantasy film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu and Doug Jones.  In post-Civil War Spain, 1944, a dreamy young girl named Ofelia travels with her sickly pregnant mother to be at her stepfather’s side in an outpost where he’s commanding troops fighting anti-Franco rebels.  The night they arrive she meets a faun in an ancient labyrinth near the outpost, who believes she is a princess of the underworld.  The faun gives her three scary tasks to perform before she can be returned to her magical home, which she does while dodging the commander and aiding her sick mother.  It’s not really scary, perhaps a little startling at times with a few squirm-inducing moments.  And it’s subtitled, if that sort of thing bothers you.  But it’s a good dark fairy tale that’s different from the usual blood-and-guts fare.

                  Creep Factor: 2

What Lies Beneath:  2000 supernatural thriller directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer and Diana Scarwid.  Claire the Housewife and Norman the Prominent Scientist are an affluent couple living in Vermont who just sent their only child off to college.  After overhearing her neighbors’ loud arguments and then experiencing strange and creepy phenomena in her big empty house, Claire becomes convinced that her neighbor killed his wife and they’re now being haunted by the woman’s ghost.  It’s pretty suspenseful:  is the woman dead?  Is she the ghost?  Is the ghost someone else?  Is there even a ghost, or has Claire’s empty nest syndrome run away with her imagination?  The twist is interesting and unexpected; it definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat.  The ending is a little hokey, but forgivable.

                  Creep Factor: 2

Bathroom seance, anyone?

The Mist:  2007 sci-fi horror film directed by Frank Darabont and starring Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones, and like 5 people from The Walking Dead.   A heavy fog rolls into town the morning after a nasty thunderstorm, and some folks take shelter in a grocery store when they realize the mist is somehow killing people.  OK, I know.  At first I was all “Oooooh mist . . . scary.”  But it does get pretty scary once the source of the mist’s killing power is revealed.  The acting is fairly solid all around.  Harden is hilarious as the uber-Christian soothsayer who attempts to convince her fellow refugees that God’s Judgment is at hand.  I wanted her to be less crazy in the beginning, and let it ramp up more slowly, but it’s still a solid performance.  It’s not at all what I expected, half an hour too long, and the ending is brutal.  I say give it a shot if you like Walking Dead, or the bleak no-light-at-tunnel’s-end kind of horror movies.

                  Creep Factor: 3

The Cabin in the Woods:  2012 horror film directed by Drew Goddard, produced and co-written by Joss Whedon, and starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Bradley Whitford, Richard Jenkins, and Amy Acker.  Five college students decide to spend a weekend at a remote cabin in the woods.  And that’s all I’m saying.  Go see it immediately.  SERIOUSLY.  Just trust me on this one, ok?  If you like any of the Whedon oeuvre, or Bradley Whitford, or comedy or horror or breathing, then go see it.  Don’t read anything else about it; the less you know the better.

                  Creep Factor: 4?

Attack the Block:  2011 British sci fi thriller directed by Joe Cornish and starring Jodie Whittaker and John Boyega.  Sam (Whittaker) is returning to her apartment complex after work when she’s mugged by a group of teenage boys.  In the middle of the attack, a strange object plummets from the sky, giving Sam time to escape.  Moses (Boyega), the leader of the gang, goes to investigate and is himself attacked by a frightening creature.  The boys manage to kill it, but other larger creatures are soon on their tail.  Since it turns out the teens live in the same complex as Sam, she’s soon dragged into the fight and must work with her former muggers if they’re going to survive the alien invasion.

          It’s funny and exciting and scary and interesting and I loved it and you should see it.  The acting is pretty fair, the aliens are realistic enough to be scary but not gross or ridiculous, the pacing is excellent, and there’s a cameo by Nick Frost!  Seriously, SEE IT.

                  Creep Factor: 1.5

Halloween H2O:  1998 slasher film directed by Steve Miner and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, John Hartnett, Michelle Williams, Adam Arkin and LL Cool J, with brief appearances by Janet Leigh, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Nancy Stephens.  Laurie Strode has been in hiding since her brother tried to kill her, living with her son in California as principal of a posh private high school.  On the 20^th anniversary of the attack Michael Myers tracks her down, and when the kids all go on a camping trip he stalks the nearly empty halls of the school, hunting Laurie, her son and the few people who didn’t think Yosemite sounded like fun.

                  I will say this:  if you never saw the original, this won’t make much sense to you.  Plus you should see the original.  Go watch it.  Also it is of the slightly campy ‘90s horror genre, so if you’re not into that, you won’t be into this.  But I think it’s great, lots of little nods to the first two movies, ignoring sequels 4-6 (as well it should), and Janet Leigh is just adorable.

                  Creep Factor: 2

Urban Legend:  1998 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks and starring—seriously, this line up—Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Joshua Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Rosenbaum, Tara Reid and featuring smallish parts for slasher movie veterans Robert Englund, Brad Dourif and Danielle Harris.  Natalie is taking a class on folklore at Generic Northeastern University, when her friends and acquaintances start dying in the manner of urban legends – aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights?  Again, it’s very ‘90s horror, so if that’s your thing and you’ve already seen the Scream movies a gojillion times, give this a shot.

                  Creep Factor: 2

The People Under the Stairs:  1991 horror movie directed by Wes Craven and starring Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer and Sean Whalen.  How even to describe it?  A young boy named Fool devises a plan to rob his family’s sleazy landlords of their fortune, but when he and his friends enter the house they find it’s a maze filled with booby traps, creepy cannibal foster kids who live in the basement, an ominous dude named Daddy who stalks the halls with a shotgun in full BDSM attire, a kid named Roach who lives in the walls and a scared little girl in need of rescue.

                  It’s really weird and strange and kind of darkly silly.  I really liked this when I was a kid, and I’ve found that it holds up if you can watch it with a grain of salt.

                  Creep Factor: 1

A Perfect Getaway:  2009 psychological thriller directed by David Twohy and starring Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, and Kiele Sanchez.  A nice young couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii find themselves in a cat v. mouse situation when they learn that another couple they’re travelling with may be responsible for a series of brutal murders.  I have an inexplicable love for Multipass and Zahn, so I went into this pretty sure I would like it.  And I did.  I didn’t really buy the twist at the end, but still enjoyed it, if that makes sense.  The actors all did a really good job with the material, so I would say if you like any of these people then see it.  It’s decent.

                  Creep Factor: 2

Movies by Month: September 2012, part 1

Airplane:  1980 satirical comedy directed by Jim Abrahams and David & Jerry Zucker, starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves.  An ex-fighter pilot turned taxi driver is unable to be responsible or something because of his war-related trauma.  He boards a plane that his stewardess ex-girlfriend is working in an attempt to win her back over the course of the flight, everyone gets food poisoning, and he must overcome his issues and make an emergency landing.  I’m not a fan of “silly” humor or slapstick, generally.  I usually allow it in very small doses.  But there was something about this movie that got through to me – maybe because I went in knowing what to expect.  I actually really liked it, even laughed out loud.  Barbara Billingsley jive-talking, a Saturday Night Fever parody, the completely over the top Queen-ness of air traffic controller Johnny.  Loved it.

Le Cirque – A Table In Heaven:  2007 documentary directed by Andrew Rossi.  It centers around Sirio Maccioni as he attempts to reinvent his iconic restaurant Le Cirque and keep his family’s business booming.  It started out like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but quickly got on my nerves.  I watched him nitpick at his family for 30 minutes and then I just turned it off. 

W.E.:  2011 romantic drama directed by Madonna and starring Abbie Cornish, Oscar Isaac, James D’Arcy and Andrea Riseborough.  I’m planning a thorough review in the near future, side-by-side with The King’s Speech, but let me just say this.  YOU GUYS.  It’s so good.  Madonna!  I know!  I understand your potential skepticism, but it’s honestly, really, actually a good movie.  Go watch it.



OMG THE COSTUMES.



Beyond the Gates of Splendor:  2004 documentary directed by Jim Hanon.  In 1956 five American missionaries were killed while on a visit to the Huaorani tribe of Ecuador.  So, I’m ambivalent about this one.  I realize this happened like 60 years ago, and “things were different then” or whatever.  But you take off for the middle of the jungle with your new wives, start families, learn about a scary isolated tribe that’s known for their extreme violent tendencies, and go “I KNOW.  Let’s go visit them and teach them about airplanes and Jesus and how their culture is wrong.  What’s the worst that could happen?”  On the other hand, after their exposure to the white folks the Huaorani did knock off all the killing and now the descendants of the original missionaries are BFFs with the descendants of the killers.  So it all works out?

It’s suspenseful, and the ending is nice.  But I was sort of annoyed by it most of the time.  The music is distracting, it’s hard to keep track of who’s married to who and all that, and my disdain for the missionary lifestyle was hard for me to put aside.  It was just okay.

Basic Instinct:  1992 erotic (?) thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone.  Love on the rocks, ain’t no big surprise.  SING IT, NEIL.  Detective Nick is sent to investigate the stabbing death of a rock star and the only suspect is the man’s lover, Catherine Tramell.  Cue famous interrogation scene.  They become adversarial lovers, more people become suspects and are exonerated and then die.  It all really doesn’t matter.

I’d never seen this before.  Oh sure, I’d seen bits and pieces.  Get it?  Shut up.  I had held off on watching it because it’s so hyped and now I feel validated.  I just couldn’t commit to it.  The dialogue is terrible.  Like Showgirls terrible.  It was hokey and over-the-top and kind of boring.

The Town:  2010 crime drama directed by Ben Affleck and starring Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Pete Postlewaite and Jon Hamm.  Four longtime friends from Boston (of course) commit a robbery together and briefly take the bank manager Claire (Hall) hostage.  After they let Claire go they worry she might have seen and heard too much, so Doug (Affleck) befriends her to assess how much trouble they might be in for.  Of course Doug falls for Claire, which confuses things as he tries to date her but still rob banks with his buddies.  It’s tense and quick-paced and interesting, the acting is pretty excellent all around – even from Lively, who totally surprised me.  I liked it a lot.  See it.

The Baader Meinhof Complex:  2008 German (yes, it’s subtitled) drama directed by Uli Edel and starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek.  It follows the first generation of the West German left-wing extremist group RAF.  In 1970 a group of liberal activists formed an organization to protest the West German government, which they saw as a thinly-veiled extension of the former Nazi regime.  The movie starts with the formation of the group, its early days of organizing and protesting, their flight to and training in Iraq, their devolution into violent terrorist activism, and the incarceration of the first generation leaders. 

It’s apparently quite historically accurate, and made me want to read more about the RAF and its less-famous and more violent sister organizations.  But it covers a lot of ground, which made it seem stretched a bit thin at times.  And I had very little sympathy for any of the characters, perhaps with the exception of journalist Ulrike Meinhof.  The RAF leadership keep getting into huge blowout arguments over minor philosophical differences and I don’t really understand the point because it all sounds crazy.  It was decent, not amazing.

Fish Tank:  2009 British drama directed by Andrea Arnold and starring Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender and Kierston Wareing.  Mia is a volatile 15 year-old loner living with her mother and sister in an East London housing project.  She has few friends, she’s a little strange, and she spends a lot of time practicing hip hop dance routines in an abandoned apartment in hopes that it will lead to a job and an escape from her family.  Her mom starts dating a surprisingly kind, handsome, mysterious man and Mia starts to soften a little.  Her ensuing infatuation has terrible consequences.

Did you ever have a crush on an adult when you were a teenager?  It’s awful.  And what’s worse than the agony of imagining what that impossible relationship would be like is the delusion that it could actually happen.  And what’s even worse than that is when it does actually happen.  Teenagers do desperate things. 

I love British movies with surly teens I can barely understand.  This is excellent, I wanted to watch it again immediately after it ended.  It’s a little heart-crushing, but absolutely worth the pain.  The acting is amazing, the music is brilliant, and the final scene is a soft little punch in the stomach.