Thursday, July 31, 2014

Adult World Film Review

Once I had heard that this film was being filmed in my area, and would take place in the city of Syracuse. NY I was intrigued and could not wait to see it.  If you have not heard of this movie it stars John Cuzack, and Emma Roberts. Ms. Roberts plays a young suburbanite who has recently graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Poetry, and aspirations to be a famous Poet. She fails to get anything published and her parents are sick of paying for her expenses. She seeks employment, but cannot seem to get hired anywhere , but at an adult bookstore named "Adult World". Funny thing is there really is an Adult World in Syracuse, but it is nothing like the one in the film. One day she happens to come across one of her favorite poets, and resident of Syracuse, Rat Billings(played by Cuzack).



I found this film to be interesting at first, because it showed great aerial views of the cityscape,  the SU campus, and downtown area. But this was not enough to make this supposed comedy worth watching. I found Roberts interpretation of a CNY suburbanite to be extremely annoying. She was loud, obnoxious, and overall very annoying of a character. The plot of the film seemed stupid as it's about how this girl doesn't have a clue that she will not be the next famous writer, and how her mentor is basically using her for a cleaning lady while mocking her the whole time. For some reason a college graduate is so vacuous that she misses this.



I did find it cool that they featured the Gear Factory, which is one of Syracuse's galleries. It also featured the artwork of local CNY artists.

I found the movie to be too unbelievable and even the snow scenes in the film did not do the region justice, and it must have been filmed early or very late in the winter season. Overall this movie was just okay. I would never watch it again, and as  resident of CNY can somewhat brag that a film was created here. No one has paid me to review this film , and I rented a copy with my own money.
 

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Who is the Villain? Film Review of Red White & Blue

I came across this film in a listing of 10 horror films that should be seen to be believed or something like that. As I watched this I had seen the ending of this film a very long time ago on IFC, which is who produced this movie.  I rented a copy of it from Netflix, and no one is paying me to review this, which I will give my honest opinion on this film.

The movie does not start out at all like a horror film, and I kept asking myself...."why is this considered horror?" You see it starts out with a skanky girl named Erica, and we see how she goes from bar to bar just picking up random guys and sleeping with them. We later learn that she lives in a room for rent establishment and pays for her board by cleaning. The film jumps all over the place, and shows different players in the film. This really confused me, as the story telling is not right in your face and direct. The viewer kind of has to play detective and figure it out as the film progresses.

One of the other characters that is introduced is a man named Nate, who lives on the same floor as Erica. He seems to be a strange loner, who shyly observes Erica, and later helps her get a job where he works. One day he tells her this bizarre story about how he used to torture animals as a child. Creepy. They slowly develop a relationship, but not in the way one would expect.

At one point in the film Erica reveals just why she sleeps around, and "never fucks the same guy twice".  She tells someone how when she was 4yrs old her mothers boyfriend raped her. So is she the victim or the villain?

I don't want to spoil this film for those who have yet to see it, but it has been called a revenge film, and if you put together all of the stuff I have mentioned already you may get an idea of just what happens to make this be considered a horror film. I liked this film, and rated it 4 out of 5 stars. I think it was a bit confusing at times, but kind of made sense in the end. There is no real marking the separation of time events, but only through paying attention to the dialogue. We also see near the end just why the film is named what it is, and this was another one of those moments where you had to pay attention to catch it.