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 April 2008

Bug, dir. William Friedkin (2007)

NIKKI says:
Probably one of the weirdest films I've ever seen, and that's why I liked it. It challenged everything in me. It was crazy, horrible, and dirty. Nothing was fully explained. It was dream-like. Ashley Judd was in it. Everything existed here to turn me off, and yet, I found myself glued.

I learned watching the making-of on the DVD that this is a movie about paranoia. I figured that, but I was looking for something more. I felt through much of the film that I was missing some grand point. Turns out I wasn't -- Friedkin talks about it as a paranoia piece, while the actors talk about it's love story elements. Michael Shannon says he wants everyone to walk away from it loving each other a little bit more.

To find the love story here is dig through a lot of grit, blood, and screaming. But he's right -- it's there. At the core of it, Ashley Judd's character needs something to believe in after the disappearance of her child. She blames herself, and in walks Michael Shannon, this stranger who thinks there are bugs in his brain and that's he's being controlled my the military. She think she's nuts, but his belief is so fierce that she starts to believe it, too. Eventually, his weirdness becomes hers and she uses his theories to explain her situation. She can deal with her loss. But, more importantly, she believes Michael Shannon. He is insane, but she believes him. That's the love part. Sure, she's kind of insane, too, but watching as they decide to take vengeance on their controllers is so fucked up it's actually kind of beautiful.

Bizarre, challenging, and fascinating.

3.5/5

Prey, dir. Darrell Roodt (2007)

NIKKI says:
Technically, Fulci picked this one. We selected three horror movies from the to-watch pile, laid a treat in front of them, and waited. Prey it was. Fulci spent much of the movie running up to the screen to bark at big animals, so something tells me his selection was far from informed.

So, Peter Weller marries a women 25 years younger then him and takes her to Africa with his kids -- one cute, one snotty -- and sends them on safari while he stays back at camp to build something. The new wife and the kids wind up trapped in a truck with savage lions lying in wait nearby.

The movie is basically 90 minutes of them in the car trying to figure out what to do. There are tense moments, sure, but it's mostly just boring. And I hated seeing the lions so callously gunned down -- it was a bit exploitative. As I always say in movies like this -- the lions were there first!! Leave them alone!!

Not a great movie, not utterly horrible. Just ... boring.

1.5/5