Ong Bak 2 [Ong Bak 2: The Beginning] - 4/5

Tony Jaa, when are you going to get the true backing you deserve? Not from Hollywood, no, they would water down him and turn him into a comedian (cough Jackie Chan cough), but I want to see him in more. That's why I was excited to finally catch "Ong Bak 2". I've been dying for more of this guy. Honestly, this is his best film overall.

"Ong Bak 2" is a prequel of sorts (mostly conceptionally) where a young man watches his father die at the hands of ruthless ruler in old school Thailand. He then grows up and trains to be the badass leader of a group of fighting thieves when he decides its time to take vengeance against his father's killer. As you can imagine, all kinds of wicked shite ensues and Tony Jaa goes on a kickin ass spree.

Really, the plot is somewhat irrelevant to the story. Hell, you don't need subtitles or dubbing for this bad boy. I think Tony Jaa (whom also wrote and directed it) figured, 'you know...my other movies have pretty shitty stories. Might as well keep it simple, limit the dialogue, and show the audience what they want to see.' Well, it works and although this is his most stripped down film storywise, its also visually one of his most stunning. The style, the filming quality, and the fairly clever directing make this one his best in that aspect. Jaa has a sense of not overexplaining things and just letting them happen and it works wonderfully for "Ong Bak 2".

Of course, though we don't watch these kind of movies for their directing style or in depth thought provoking tales. Not all the time anyway. We want to see some awesome choreography and sweet martial arts. Of course, with Jaa, there is never disappointment. He lands his Thai badass back into what he does best and that's hand to hand combat. This is where this film truly shines and by the time we reach our climatic ending of 'Tien vs the world' - we get some great choreography and action. It was interesting that this is the first time we get to see Jaa use a lot of weapons in the movie - he uses a ton by the way - and it lends this film to being unique from his others in that sense. His swordplay is quite dazzling and combined with his monstrous use of Muay Thai elbows and knees (with the borderline drunken boxing sequence) he gives us the goods here. This guy is built like a God and runs like a machine and he lets us see that. He even throws in a sequence where he fights a Bird Ninja (seriously) on the back of an elephant. Ballsy? I'm sure he's un-insurable.

"Ong Bak 2" might not be the most potent martial arts film I've see in a while, but its straight kick to the balls approach visually and action wise pleased me immensely. The lack of significant plot actually helped out in its translation from Thai to English quite well and Jaa's visual style was pretty impressive.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Dark Country - 4/5

I'm guessing I'm the only one that really loved this movie. Which is okay, since I'm all right with being an outsider on this one. I mean, this is a very odd movie and a good portion of your average movie goers are going to HATE it. I understand that and fully warn you out there. Keep an open mind or suffer the consequences.

"Dark Country" follows a recently married couple as they go to travel from Las Vegas to California by driving through the desert at night. They come across a wrecked car and when they decide to help the injured man they set off a series of intense events that will forever end their world.

The reason for this oddball feeling is that Tom Jane in his directorial debut, decided to make "Dark Country" in the vein of a 60s style Twilight Zone/Hitchcock thriller. In all honesty, he accomplishes this quite evenhandedly. Intense close ups, odd nightmarish angels, significant work with shadows, odd color schemes, and the instantly obvious green screen shots in the car (which is where the majority of this film actually occurs). As a big fan of those early thrillers and film noir, this shot right up my ally. The feel, the approach, the campy story, they all worked on my film love immensely. Even the acting from Tom Jane and his female cohort are in that style of over the top and melodramatic 60s work. Modern movie goers are going to probably watch it and blow a raspberry and give the screen the bird though because of this. It's definitely not a 'modern' film and doesn't play itself to be that way, although some of the dialogue is very modern...like say the f-word.

So if you are not a fan of older style film making, or film noir, and I'm not talking about all the people that claim this film to be a "Sin City" rip-off - if you knew anything about film history and style then you would know that to be bull shit and that both are modern noir films - then you are going to hate this one too. But if you keep an open mind you are going to dig this one. Oh and don't blink at the end of the film, you might miss a pertinent clue to the 'how' of its somewhat hazy ending.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Saw VI - 4/5

All right. If its Halloween its "Saw" and of course, this guy, is going to be there opening night just as he has for the last 5 years. So of course, even with "Saw V" being a pretty giant shit, I was there for "Saw VI" and I'm glad I was. I'm glad that I didn't let the last one ruin my fun, because "VI" is probably the best film in the franchise since the first. And that says something since I thought the combination of "III" and "IV" was sick.

Here' the deal though. You must watch "V" right before seeing this one. This one explains almost all of the gaping plot holes from it. If you have the extra time, also see "III" and "IV" as this one does tie in a ton from those too. That's one of the reasons I love this franchise. It's one that relies on its previous entries to work - and just like the third and fourth films worked better together than separately, this one works best with "V" in recent memory. I won't give too much away, but your questions will be answered in a more cohesive manner this time around.

So what we have with "VI" is a story that has gotten back to being intertwining in itself and the other films. We have the continued police investigation for the 'new' Jigsaw that meshes with a new side story involving Jigsaw's ex-wife Jill Tuck and her involvement and of course, new gamers, all from a cold and heartless medical insurance company. It was nice to see some solid story and script work in this film return to the forefront and as a bonus we get some of the best acting work so far in the "Saw" world! Finally, a film that has semi-descent acting! It's only gotten worse thus far with the franchise so that was a pleasant turn around.

Oddly enough, the worst part about "VI" was it's directing. Greutert isn't near as capable as either Wan or Bousman was with their time on the franchise and luckily for him since the focus was placed so much on the story I missed out on a lot of his lackluster work with the camera and pacing. It's sad to think this is perhaps the weakest directing for the franchise and yet still one of the best films. Guess it goes to show you that sometimes a story can carry the film enough.

I must also mention that I really enjoyed that the franchise went back to its 'lesson' ideology for the series. "V" sorely missed the boat on that one and "II" wasn't far behind, but this time, there is a nice little thought fodder with the ideas of insurance and how it works. I wont' give out too much, but it was nice to see a bit more thought into the reasons that the characters were picked by Jigsaw this time.

I must say that, yes, "Saw VI" might be my new second favorite in the films. It was smart, it was legitimized, and it was had some nice substance (even with the increased presence of gore). Let's keep it on track boys!

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Paranormal Activity - 4/5

I've put this film off for far too long. Yeah, I know its demolishing the box office, and yeah, I know everyone and their mom is crawling out of the woodwork to see the 'scariest film ever made!'. Those are exactly the reasons I waited. Same thing happened with "The Blair Witch Project" and I found that to be a massive letdown. So I waited a bit, and then I went to a matinee showing. Take that hype.

I wouldn't call this film so much as 'scary' as it was really well done. I have to give credit where credit is due and the filmmakers created some nice tension and spooky visuals. Perhaps its because of my Horror film fanaticism that I found it to be somewhat of a fairly straight forward approach to the film. Nothing was truly that new in the film. It wasn't a new approach to the picture...handheld pseudo-portrayed realism is everywhere now and the scares and story weren't all that original either. I mean 'haunted' house films and even the scare scenes have all been used before. What this film succeeds at is SELLING the scare. I will admit they do that amazingly right. The acting is spot on - you feel as though you are watching you neighbor's home movies - and the choice cut scenes to build their characters and build the stories is well paced and edited. This film is so well put together and created that the simplistic story and approach to the film only added to its own hype and that's pretty impressive. I wish at times the story would have been built even more - as with the build with the Diane plot that builds up but never goes anywhere - but it was nice to see this film wasn't just built on being one scare right after the next.

As a fan of Horror, its nice to see a change of pace and to catch an anomaly to the industry as "Paranormal Activity" is. At times I wished the story would have been flushed out a bit more (its the writing in me trying to find depth where it isn't) but the craftsmanship of the film itself is quite impressive. Not quite the fright fest it was hyped to be but a solid film no matter what. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Children Of The Corn (2009) - 1/5

"Put this into your god and smoke it" --Burt

Ugh. That's all I have to say after watching this 'new' version of "Children Of The Corn". I mean, the first film wasn't all that great, but it had its charm and it definitely was more cohesive than this piece of work. I really wanted this to succeed as a film...guess that's what I get fro getting my hopes up.

I should have known better considering that this debuted on the SyFy channel (Side Note: I hate that its now SyFy instead of Sci Fi), but this 'unrated' version perked my interest and, always being a sucker for franchise films, I had to take a look.

This re imagining could have been so good. COULD HAVE BEEN. Unfortunately, it comes across as a film with no purpose, no drive, limited scripting, and far too cheesy even for its own good. There are moments in this film that I wanted them to hang onto, but for some reason this film feels like it was made with all the wrong intentions.

"Children Of The Corn" focuses on our annoying married and squabbling couple as they drive across po-dunk Nebraska (why you may ask...I asked myself that question and was left hanging...they are going to California I guess) when they accidentally nail some little kid in the road. Of course, this kid comes from an occult like outfit of children whom have decided all adults are sinners and sacrifice them to 'He Who Walks Behind The Rows' for their own religious right. It's actually quite the interesting story (thanks Stephen King) but just like all of King's work, it never transfers to film well and this one even less so.

Partially, this is has to do with the very very very poor character work and dialogue. I'm sorry, but if I had to hear that woman bitch anymore about their marriage and him reference one more time about his stint in Vietnam I was going to kill the writers. They tried to give them back story (the Nam thing works occasionally but is far over used) and ended up creating 2D failed representations of humanity. We also get to see a bit of the characters from the children. I was digging on Malakai quite a bit, but seriously the rest were just annoying brats. I never felt frightened at all by these kids and especially Issac whom should have been the most feared thing there. We gets hints at this odd tension between Issac and Malakai but its never worked on and some of the chosen scenes for the kids ended up pulling 'what the fucks' out of me instead inquisitiveness. Seriously, the 'fertilizing' scene was completely awkward. Great concept poorly executed and not tasteful at all.

Then of course, I was excited to see the ending. I was curious to see if they kept it the same as the ending to the short story and although it is closer than the original film - I didn't know what the hell actually happened. And there didn't seem to be a climax to the film at all. It just sort of ended with an awful declaration from an unconvincing Issac. I'm sorry, but what happened to building the tension and creating a high point for the film? This thing just sputtered starting and never went anywhere from there. Putt, putt, putt. Sorry guys out of gas!

This was just a horrendous failure on so many levels. Oh man, did I waste my money. This was just...ugh. That's all I got. Guess I'm going to have to go break out the original now. Redeem myself somehow. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Thaw, The - 3.5/5

Coming at an almost perfect timing point, with Swine Flu scares running across the US and an almost 'too trendy for its own good' focus on Global Warming and being green, "The Thaw" is a perfect combination of these two concepts. The idea of a pandemic that is created when glacial melting releases a prehistoric infestation of 'bugs' couldn't be more relevant to today's society. And honestly, "The Thaw" does a great job of balancing this end of the world scenario with enough personal and character work to make it a just story driven enough. I was definitely surprised with the quality of work here.

Now I'm not saying that "The Thaw" doesn't have its flaws...as it does and they become apparent towards the end, but I was pleasantly surprised with the stoutness of this movie. It's a pretty basic story we've seen before as a group of people (this time ecology students on their way to study with the infamous and somewhat offbeat man of the hour Val Kilmer) are isolated into a situation with these deadly 'bugs' as they struggle to quarentine themselves and find a way out. It's classic isolation horror (ergo "John Carpenter's The Thing" with its 'no you're infected!' subplot) with just enough touch of current events to make it unique. Although the pacing is solid enough throughout, some of the odd jumps in logic for the sake of the pacing and story movement did hinder it. I'm sorry but in that situation I would have killed that Feddy kid (whom tries to only save his own skinny ass multiple times) and fed his ass to the bugs. And the why the other characters make logic of his motives felt a little forced. Happens a few times throughout and it was a bit frustrating.

The special effects were spot on (even some of the low budget CGI insect work did its job perfectly) and even with some of its over the top acting performances (the main girl started to unnerve me a bit towards the end, but the helicopter pilot's nice work made up for it earlier) the solid story and nice pace of the film made up for most of it. Add in some nice directorial touches like the opening sequence of the film which I enjoyed, and "The Thaw" was surprisingly solid. Although it did run a bit off towards the end, I have to admit the big 'bang' towards the end did take me off guard, its initial run was strong enough. Not a perfect film, but a nice addition to my collection. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

PTU: Police Tactical Unit - 4/5

"Everyone in uniforms are brothers." -Sgt. Ho

I definitely had the wrong idea going into this film. It was my first Johnny To film and the cover art for the Dragon Dynasty version of the film made it look like an action oriented cop drama. To say that my initial concept going into the film was wrong is a bit of an understatement. Hell, I'm pretty sure that this was pretty much the exact opposite of what I expected. Yet, I still found this film to be inexplicably fascinating throughout and one of my favorite watches as of late.

"PTU" is a minimalist film. That's right, lets take a cop drama and have almost no dialogue, no action, and a storyline that never ever over explains itself. It was a ballsy move on Johnny To's part and not only does he make it work but he makes it memorable in every scene and builds a dynamic atmosphere of tension and foreboding doom.

The simplistic story goes as such. One night, the son of a Triad gangster finds himself dead and as frantic detective scrambles to find his lost police issued gun, gets himself and a team of officers caught in an oncoming gang war. Sounds as though it could have been action packed, right? But the focus comes down to the tension and the waiting game as the officers hinge on one another to find a lost gun before it creates an eruption between two rival gangs. At times I had trouble following the story, the dialogue definitely makes the viewer have to piece it together themselves and it leaves a lot of things unverified and left to interpretation (for example, the three crying women in the abandoned complex which many have debated of their significance and why factor of their need in the film). At times I wished they would have explained a bit more - I'm American I'm not used to having to think on my own! - but its minimalist approach has significant charm in the overall film.

The acting was superb. Again, due to its minimalist dialogue and depth of story, lots of emphasis was placed on the subtlety of the acting and the spare moments one is given. Which happens to be one of Simon Yam's strongest suits and his performance in this film is rather riveting. Between him and Suet Lam (whom plays the detective whose lost his gun in a fight) there is little time for the supporting cast but each make it worth their time on screen.

I have to admit, even with the wrong expectations going into the film I found "PTU" to be a riveting and intense film experience. The acting, the drama, the tension, and the atmosphere are all amazing and carry this film's minimalist approach beautifully. This is definitely not a film for everyone and if you can't stand almost no score, no dialogue, and no daylight then this is not for you. Otherwise just enjoy the visual work. Bravo To for having the balls to do this film. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Where The Wild Things Are - 3/5

"Now you are king and you will be a truly great king." --Carol.

On my lazy Saturday afternoon, my wife and I decided that considering the rave reviews of this film, we would catch a matinee of "Where The Wild Things Are". We read that the film was heartwarming, dark, funny, intensely symbolic and refreshingly visual, so I got somewhat excited to finally catch one of my favorite childhood stories in film form. What I got wasn't anything that I expected from the film (even with reading a ton of reviews) and I found myself disappointed with the film overall.

The first half of the film is wonderful. We get some interesting back story about Max and how his world and family are seemingly coming apart as his sister reaches that age where hanging with little bro is condemning and his mother is trying to move on from a failed marriage. It's a scary time for a young man and its no wonder that he would find comfort (and friends) in a land of mysterious monsters whom share his same problems. Visually, this film is pretty stunning, and bringing the monsters to life from the book was an awesome feat. It was odd seeing these things almost exactly as I saw them in the story but talking and being emotive. Acting wise we also get some great moments even from the monsters. We come to care and love the creatures as much as Max does just through some solid special effects and amazing voice work.

My problems with the film tend to boil to the surface around the halfway point of the film. Story wise, it builds up this expectation and artsy quality that what we are going to get in the film is this odd and adult sense of philosophy and sophisticated symbolism that ends up not being quite either. It leads down this path of subtle symbolism that turns out to be very simplistic and somewhat surface value. The simplicity does have its charm in this film, but I wanted it to be deeper. I wanted this film to effect me as an adult as the book did when I was a kid. I wanted lessons to be learned and a world to be torn apart only to be rebuilt. All I got though, was a simple message. I'm sorry, but if you wanted a child's message in this film then perhaps you should have made a straightforward kid's film - because I got the feeling that this wasn't a kids film. Only to have that thought verified by the looks of about 50 very bored kids in the audience. They didn't care by the end and ironically, I didn't either.

Which leads me to my second big issue with the film. After a nice build in the first half of the film and some wonderful acting and visual work, the second half of the film tends to drop off drastically. We get some nice tension between characters and an odd climactic scene during the dirt clod fight that felt a little wayward. So by the time, Max decides it is time to return home, I felt as though far too much was started but left unfinished. We have some random references to power struggles, equality issues, and even gender differences that are referenced in a single line or scene and never again. We have some of the major characters that are left hanging with no resolution (Carol doesn't seem to actually learn or fix anything by the end, except he misses Max) and we are left wondering if our lesson in life is that 'things don't change, live with it' instead of working towards expressing our concerns and making amends. This film just ends with assumptions that are neither supported or denied. And that just frustrated me.

Visually the film is fantastic (although by the end I was even a bit worn on rocks, trees, and desert), the score was awesome, and the acting was solid. Even the humor was almost always nailed. But these are all aesthetics in the end, and where this film should have succeeded (in storytelling, symbolism, and character development) it felt as two dimensionally as the kid's book it was based on. To me, "Where The Wild Things Are" held massive potential to change and make a dynamic film, but failed in the most important areas. Which to me, is a major disappointment.

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Saw V - 2/5

This is by far the weakest in the franchise yet. "Saw V" just misses some of the things that made its predecessors stand out as Horror films and as good sequels. This one also has some of the worst acting in the series and the worst dialogue (which is saying something) when it comes to the characters.

I think my biggest issue with "Saw V" is how it fails to truly intertwine the two parts of the story. We have the ongoing investigation with Strahm as he searches for the new Jigsaw and we have the new victims and the new traps. Unfortunately, it never really makes them intertwine until the ending and even then its somewhat a bare minimum. This lack of the clever pacing is what hurts this film the most and throws off the expectations that we have as fans. Not to mention the 'twist' at the end isn't really a twist (and a huge disappointment coming after "IV"'s killer twist) and more of a step to leading us into a new sequel which of course will happen.

Throw on that a story that leaves far too much hanging by the end (I'm assuming these are threads for the next film - so rating might go up slightly after seeing "VI") and I felt as though that this film felt far too much like a filler sequel to prepare us for the next one which is somewhat of a disappointment on my end.

Although it does have some moments, like explaining how the new Jigsaw has fit into the entire franchise thus far, this one feels a bit too watered down and far too surface value for a good "Saw" film. Definitely looking forward to seeing if "VI" pays off on all the story elements that were left unfinished. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider

Saw IV - 4/5

As a companion piece to "Saw III" this film is pretty sick. There is so much threading between the previous one and this one that if you didn't pay attention in "III" you are pretty much out of the loop and not going to enjoy it. On the other hand, if you paid attention to all the details left unfinished in the last few then this one pays off nicely.

Once again, as with all of the "Saw" films, the acting is what hinders this one. It's too bad as this one has one of the more interesting stories of the bunch although it also has one of the least plausible sub plots too. "Saw IV" has SWAT leader Rigg (Mr. Bent reappearing in the same role as the bit parts in both "II" and "III") becoming obsessed in finding Eric Mathews (Donnie Wahlberg whom reprises his role too) and ending up getting caught up in a Jigsaw game of epic proportions that includes an odd subplot concerning two FBI agents added to the case.

Overall, this is perhaps the most far-fetched one of the series considering the game seems to have more then a few players in it (both Rigg and the FBI agents included) and taking place in multiple areas. It would seem to be almost impossible to set this game up like that in the short time span and to be able to predict not only one player but a plethora of players. If one puts that aside though, this is one of the more satisfying stories in the franchise yet.

What really makes this film pay off is the twist at the end. Not particularly the twist of 'who's the new Jigsaw' (no spoiler here if you saw he died at the end of "III"), which pays off in its own way in the threading from the previous film, but in the SECOND twist that seems to come out of the blue. I don't want to give too much away, but seeing as the series has always loved to fuck with time, one should have seen this coming eventually. It's this other twist that made the ending so damn enjoyable and a shocker and definitely made the story worth its weight in time and gives it a whole extra star in my rating.

I felt though that this probably should have been the last one considering its epic game style in conjunction with the last few films. It was interesting to add in a new 'Jigsaw', but some of the subplots feel a tad unfinished for this one - although knowing the series they will be nicely tied off later on. Just with its somewhat over-the-top story and sick twists, I have to say this is my second favorite of the franchise. Loved what they added as background for John Kramer (the original Jigsaw) and loved how it ties in all the films together. It's pretty clever even if it could have used another half hour of character work and cleaning up some subplots. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider