Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

26 February 2008

Catacombs, dir. Tomm Coker and David Elliot (2007)

NIKKI says:
What was I just saying about terrible films? I'm so over this shit. I hope.

So, Pink invites her sister to Paris to party, really. The sister is there for other, deeper reasons, but never really gets a chance to explore them, because Pin takes her to an underground party onto of a huge grave and she ends up getting the freak scared out of her, poor thing.

That was the one interesting element of this movie -- Shannyn Sossamon's character and her fear. But it really ended up meaning very little. I felt like I watched an 80 minute build up to a trick ending. Not good enough.

Was nice to see Pink acting. I could stand to watch that again. And I think Shannyn Sossamon is good, too. So, there was eye-candy.

Some scary moments (I was frightened most by what turned out to be a fuse box with a red light on it, oops), but basically ultra-standard and kind of annoying.

1.5/5

STEVE says:
This is a classic example of Predictable vs. Inevitable.

After setting up the urban legend of a goat-head-wearing fella who lives in the catacombs beneath Paris, Pink is killed by said goat-head guy at the 30 minute mark. Then it's another 80 minutes or so of run, run, run, chase, chase, chase, only to find out that Pink wasn't killed, and the goat-head guy was one of her friends in a mask.

We called this pretty early on, based solely on the goat-head guy. He was just too ridiculous to be real. A killer skulking around the catacombs, that's fine. Even a masked killer skulking around the catacombs, I'll buy. But is the skinned goat head really necessary? Not unless you're just looking to freak someone out.

If it was inevitable that it was a joke (and it could have been, as Pink's friends were set up as pranksters), we wouldn't have been able to call it. But the movie overplayed its hand and fell over the line into predictable. It still would have been boring, mind you, but at least we wouldn't have been sitting there waiting for the movie to catch up to us.

So it was pretty much April Fool's Day all over again. And we didn't enjoy that one the first time.

1.5/5

Numb, dir. Harris Goldberg (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was interested in this because the blurb had me thinking it was about a writer experiencing a blurred reality. Instead, it was about a man (who, quite incidentally, was a writer) experiencing "depersonalisation", a condition that sees the sufferer feeling separated from everything around him, as though he is viewing his life from outside it. This film chronicles the man's attempt to overcome the condition, and while much of it was interesting, a deal of it was not.

The problems started when the man, Hudson, falls in love with Quirky Girl. She's just so impossibly cute and strange and even though she's not quite as understanding of his quirks as he os of hers, he falls head over heels, and we're meant to, too. I didn't buy it. I wanted the film to focus on Hudson dealing with his problem, rather than trying to fit romance into his attempts to deal with his problem. If that makes sense.

The film began to fill up with subplots and sideviews and I lost interest in Hudson. I was especially disappointed in the Mary Steenburgen subplot that really went nowhere, and was kinda creepy.

Anyway... Matthew Perry is always great to watch. And I wondered throughout much of this just how many drugs I might be prescribed should I reveal my weirdnesses to a shrink. I think I checked off at least half Hudson's issues as my own. Oops.

2.5/5