DVDs Or Death!

It's that time again, and it's yet another boring week for DVDs.

Mad Money.

Brief Synopsis: Diane Keaton. Queen Latifah. Katie Holmes... As Bank Robbers.

Comments: Um... no thanks.

Viewing Option: Wait for TV (if at all).

Untraceable.

Brief Synopsis: Psycho Makes The World Into Killers Via Website.

Comments: It was actually a pretty decent movie, as I saw it in theater. But I don't think it's worth a buy. For everybody else, it'd be a good rent. But for me...

Viewing Option: Wait for TV.

The Great Debaters.

Brief Synopsis: A Heartfelt Movie About A Debate Team.

Comments: It got good reviews, so I might check this out at some point.

Viewing Option: Rent or Wait for TV.

The Indiana Jones Trilogy.

Brief Synopsis: Um... It's Indiana Jones.

Comments: I've just DVR'd the entire trilogy over the weekend and have been watching them (probably to have a discussion on them soon). If you're an uber-fan and don't already own them, these are special editions, so go for it.

Viewing Option: Already Have Them On TV.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe [Blu-Ray].

Brief Synopsis: Blu-Ray Re-Release Of Four Kids Who Go To Another World.

Comments: Yeah... this movie is turning into one of those that continually re-releases multiple versions just to milk it for all it's worth (and it helps that the next movie is coming out soon). So if you're a Blu-Ray freak and don't already own it, go ahead. As for me, I don't own a Blu-Ray player, but I don't have the movie already (it was okay, but not super-awesome).

Viewing Option: Watch on TV or Skip Altogether.

Thoughts On Thrillers, Horror, and Torture Porn.

I’m going to do something here I don’t do very often: just have a discussion. That’s right, no movie reviews or anything like that. I felt like giving my opinion on certain semi-related (especially these days) movie genres: thrillers, horror films, and torture porn. These labels get thrown around a lot, and half the time incorrectly.

For instance, earlier this year, a Spanish film entitled El Orfanato (The Orphanage) was released. They called it horror. The movie is not so much horror as much as it is a supernatural thriller or mystery. Words got thrown in like “terrifying” that could turn people away from such an amazing film if they’re not fans of horror. The label gets thrown around so much that it can, in fact, ruin a movie’s turn out.

The biggest disaster to be caused by the act of mislabeling was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village back in 2004. It was labeled (and advertised) as this super scary horror movie, so when people went to see it thinking they were going to be scared, the only thing we were left with were countless reviews being thrown around saying it was horrible and completely unscary. It’s all in how you go in to a movie. If it had been marketed as a thriller/drama/romance (which is what it was), it might have gotten slightly better reviews, because people's expectations wouldn’t have been elsewhere, meaning they wouldn’t have been nearly as hateful. Likewise, M. Night’s Lady in the Water was treated the same way, when it was more of a children’s fantasy/fairy tale. I remembered having to continually convince my mother that the movie was not meant to be a horror movie every time a trailer came on TV, and she never believed me.

A more recent example of this was Bug in 2006. With the director of The Exorcist at the helm, it was immediately given descriptions such as “one of the most terrifying and truly scary movies I have ever seen.” And (gasp) it wasn’t. And it was never meant to be. It’s a psychological thriller and drama. There was a moment when I was waiting in line somewhere, and some lady started going off about Bug, and how it wasn’t scary at all and that she had demanded her money back. That’s faulty advertising for you. It's even on the poster (click to enlarge it).

Similarly, movies like the first Saw are labeled as horror or torture porn, and they’re usually neither. Bet let me digress for a moment and explain for those who are unaware of what I’m talking about.

The term torture porn came onto the scene because of Eli Roth’s Hostel, in which the first half of the movie is like Cinemax porno, and the second half is, well, people torturing other people to death (I also briefly go into the term in my discussion of the Japanese movie Audition, which has wrongfully been lumped in this subgenre, as well). Since then, people have been twisting the meaning of the term to fit a whole bunch of other films into this random and new subgenre of horror. The most recent to get slapped with the title has been Untraceable, which really only has the torture side down. What people are saying about the subgenre label is that it implies people get off to the gore and torture like they would to porn.

So back to Saw; not only is there no sex or nudity (we’re talking about the first installment only here), but the gory stuff is actually rather minimal. In fact, I wouldn’t even label it as horror as much as a crime and/or psychological thriller. Yet people continually thrust it in with (the God-awful) Hostel and the like. Why is that?

If Silence of the Lambs were to be made today, it would probably be considered torture porn because of Buffalo Bill, when it is, in fact, a crime thriller. In fact, any movie these days that has some kind of psychotic killer that likes to toy with his victims in any fashion will be considered torture porn, and I don’t think that’s right.

Honestly, the only movies I consider acceptable to fall under that label are Hostel and Hostel: Part II (and maybe Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, because there’s a lot of sex, nudity, and blood, and it’s torturous to watch). And they’re all really, really horrible movies (and I don’t mean because of the subject matter… I just mean they’re boring, horribly made films). So when you link good movies like the first Saw or any other kind of remotely decent movie to that subgenre, it’s irking.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Advertise the movie how it is, and it might just get a better response. Hopefully M. Night’s coming film, The Happening, really is as awesome as it appears. Also, Eli Roth and Uwe Boll need to stop making movies, because they both really suck at it.

That is all.

UNTRACEABLE.

Before seeing this movie, I read a good way to describe it… and after seeing it, it still holds true: This movie is basically like mixing Saw with CSI. Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) and Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) work for the FBI’s cyber crime division. One day Marsh gets a tip for a website called killwithme.com. All that’s there is a live stream of a kitten trapped in a glue-trap for rats. Soon after the kitten dies and the website gains a bit of notoriety, the cat is replaced with a man who is hooked up with this blood thinner stuff, basically turning him into a super-hemophiliac. The catch is that the more people who visit the site, the more of that blood thinner goes into his body. But when the guy dies and is replaced by another, they realize that this killer is just going to keep going, and the site is going to get more visits, and people are going to die faster and faster.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with this movie, though I’m not sure if that’s because I went in with low expectations. Usually movies like this lately haven’t been too excellent, and they’re made even worse by a cheesy and predictable twist ending. As I’ve mentioned before, twists can either make or break a movie, and most of the time they break it. And I’ll be honest: I thought I had the movie figured out from the trailer alone, because every thriller these days has a twist ending. Except this one. Yes, I admit that I was wrong in this case. This movie did not have some wacky, predictable twist ending. You actually start seeing the killer’s face about halfway into the movie. But that didn’t make the movie bad, oh no. It was almost a bit refreshing.

And the movie was pretty suspenseful, too. It wasn’t the most edge-of-your-seat thriller ever, and it starts off a bit slow, but it does keep your attention. There is some gore, and the movie is actually pretty hardcore in some instances. The ways people died did remind me somewhat of how they might in a Saw movie; they are inventive and brutal. Also, like Saw, their deaths don’t come directly from the bad guy himself. Though, unlike Saw movies (except Saw 3), there’s no way for them to get out of their situation alive without outside help.

Another Saw parallel could be the social commentary, and the fact that the ‘killer’ does have a message and reasoning for doing what he does. The movie really showcases how American society (and it makes sure to point out to you that it is purely American society) is drawn to violence and the ‘car wreck scenario’ (you see it’s horrible, but can’t help but watch), as well as how people will do anything for a bit of fame and fortune. It’s pretty in-your-face, especially when they show the comments being posted on the website from the people watching.

The characters were good, although I only felt attached to Marsh and Griffin, and you do care if they die or not. The acting was pretty average, of course. It’s just a common thriller, so we aren’t expecting Oscar-worthy performances. But they kept you in the movie and nothing really detracted.

I suppose the only real downer was that, although it lacked the twist ending, it basically followed the detective thriller formula… you know such-and-such and this-and-that are going to happen sometime in the movie, and they do. And there were way too many Chekhov’s Gun’s that pointed to things that would happen later. But I still liked the ending, as it re-enforced the social commentary one last time. It’s a nice little thriller, and it’s slightly better than average. I give it A Keanu ‘Whoa’.