Side Effects

Trying to explain Side Effects and all of the events that occur would be like trying to accurately describe a hallucination to someone. It's bizzare, at times it steers in about 10,000 directions, there's a twist every 5 minutes. You would swear you're watching the newest episode of The Twilight Zone in the last half. And that's a big part of its' strange as fuck appeal, Side Effects is a cinematic theme park.

Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) stars as Emily, a depressed young woman whose life was shattered when her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) was arrested after their wedding. He's now being released and based on her decision to drive her car into a brick wall, it's safe to say that she's not taking this well. Once admitted into a mental hospital, she meets Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), a psychiatrist who after discussing her situation with her former doctor played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, decides to give her a new type of drug called Ablixa. This pill gives off all the normal side effects of common medication; happiness, raise in energy, sex drive, and murder. Someone must be held responsible for the murder, and the rest of the movie delves into the case of who is to blame.

None of this would have worked if the cast wasn't fair game, luckily all are putting their best foot forward. Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones excude a calm, confident demeanor as the doctors with everything to lose in the case. Channing Tatum is solid in his very, very limited role as Emily's concerned and clearly oblivious husband. Rooney Mara is a powerhouse as Emily, this is her movie. Every scene with her captivates your attention, you never know what's going on in her mind, to the credit of Mara, she always captures your intrigue and attention.

I was quite impressed by the look of Side Effects as well. Earlier, I compared Side Effects to an episode of The Twilight Zone, and I feel that could be attributed to the visual style. There's something very unreal about the way Side Effects was filmed, it almost feels like someone's trippy nightmare at times. It really adds to the tone and the mystery going on from beginning to end.

Many seem to have been disappointed with the way Side Effects ended, count me as a fan for this one. There's about 10,000 twists that you won't see coming, I feel that this is the type of movie you will get something different out of it the more times you watch it. I love how Steven Soderbergh decided to hell with just one surprise towards the end, instead you get 50.

Side Effects is a bizzare and surprising movie. It's one that is easily love it/hate it without much middle ground. If you choose to jump on board, you'll love the direction, the entertaining performances and the pace that definitely picks up and keeps momentum from beginning to end. I say go for it and embrace the cinematic high for all you can.

3/4

The Great Gatsby

Putting the visuals as top and only priority will never work in a film. It's a similar problem that made me so disappointed with Oz as to how much work was done on the visuals leaving everything else as lesser importance. Sadly, the Great Gatsby follows Oz's footsteps, leaving the viewer wondering what could have been if more details were given equal importance as to how it looked.

Luckily, The Great Gatsby's visuals are worth all the effort that was put into them. The entire movie looks like a 1920's dream. The visuals are stunning, the colors look great, the costumes look impeccable, and the scenes involving Gatsby's parties really let the spectacular visuals shine, Baz Luhrmann makes those scenes look flawless.

And though I did feel disappointed with a majority of the performances, a few of the actors manage to get through the movie with good merit. Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan, Daisy's sarcastic and gossiping bff nails her part, she really does feel like one of the actors who transforms into her role as opposed to just being someone that puts on a show for the moviegoers. Leonardo DiCaprio also succeeds as well, he nails the charm and mystery put into Gatsby's artificial persona, despite not really being given as much material as he should have been given with this role.

Unfortunately, Great Gatsby's dedication to looking stunning really does negatively effect the other elements in the movie. One of them is definitely the pace. The Great Gatsby is almost 2.5 hours long and at times it feels like it's 25 hours long. It really drags throughout, it takes way too long to get to the point and I felt like the stunning visuals were shoved in our faces a bit too much at times. The audience really doesn't need 20 scenes of just staring at the water.

Characterization is another struggling aspect in The Great Gatsby. I'm not sure if most can be faulted to the performances or the script but something about The Great Gatsby's players just feels like a poser. Tobey Maguire as Nick, the aspiring author and narrator of the film just feels terribly out of place and wooden. Carey Mulligan really struggles here as Daisy as well. Nothing about her character makes you feel like she's larger then life. In the novel, Daisy is described as perfection, but here, you really don't see why someone would put so much effort into making her happy. Her scenes come off as terribly forced, contrived, and bland. And the less said about Isla Fisher's ridiculously overexaggerated portrayal as Myrtle, Daisy's husband's mistress, the better. And on the subject of Daisy's husband, Joel Edgerton seems to have gone in a completely different direction. While most of the performances/characters feel as stiff as stone, his feels completely unnatural, almost cartoonish especially in the later scenes with his reactions to Daisy and Gatsby's love affair.

The Great Gatsby could have been a masterpiece, but instead, it just shines in the visuals department with terribly bland performances, dialogue, and a pace that overshadows the visuals. "Don't tell us, show us" is a great motto that could be applied here. You hear about these people being such larger then life humans but the movie never really makes you feel that anyone is worth it, rendering the movie as heartless and soulless even with the scenes that should have been more emotion-filled. At one point in the movie, Daisy states that, "The best thing in this world that a girl can be is a beautiful little fool". Sadly, The Great Gatsby followed this.

1/4

Stitches

It's odd; Stitches is an absolutely terrible movie from beginning to end, there's never a moment where the movie aspires to be anything higher then garbage. But, oddly enough, that's the only saving grace that it has going on, its' shittastic quality actually redeems it from being a total fail in my book. But in order to not seem completely mental for not despising a movie for being garbage, let me explain.

Ross Noble stars as the lead character, a bitter and miserable clown reduced to performing at children's birthday parties. After a particularly unpleasant encounter with a group of nasty children, Stitches is accidentally killed, and 6 years later (why 6 years is the magical amount of time, I really have no idea), he returns to get revenge on the kids who caused his death.

Stitches' overall performances and characterization are laughable. Every performance is completely bland and it's impossible to give a shit about any of these routine and bland characterizations they are given. I couldn't even remember any of these people's names nor did I really give a shit. But, to Stitches' credit, Ross Noble's performance is so ridiculously OTT he occasionally makes this crap worth it. If you're going to go down in a sinking ship, why not have a little fun with it?

The same could be applied to Stitches' attitude towards genuine suspense. There isn't anything remotely scary or suspenseful in Stitches, there's not one moment you don't see coming nor is there any tension. The pacing was clearly made for those who can't wait one goddamn second for something to splatter everywhere. BUT! I will admit that once in a while it goes so far out into outer space that you have to just admire it in a bizzare, fucked up way. Characters' heads are blown up like balloons, brains are harvested, people are managing to run around with their intestines hanging out. Gets points for being a guilty pleasure...at times.

Overall, Stitches is a mess. It isn't scary, the plot's paper thin, the performances are lame and the whole time you're anticipating the end. But, like the feeling after inhaling a ton of candy, you'll have a brief moment of feeling good about the decision you made, even though the end result will overall make you wanna vomit it all up. Stitches is sweet nausea.

1/4

The Possession

      Just because the rating limits the amount of gore that can be shown, that doesn't mean you should also limit the amount of fun and thrills that should be shown as well. Generic and bland PG-13 horror movies are a dime a dozen and The Possession is here to keep the chain going.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick star as Clyde and Stephanie, the divorced parents of two children, one of which is given a magic box from a yard sale that contains a demon that possesses her. No I'm not kidding, demons are now coming out of music boxes. What the fuck?

The Possession fails on many levels, it's impossible to really decipher what was the biggest flaw. I would pinpoint one of them on the lack of tension. There's never any source of thrills here. All of the characters are paper thin, you don't really give a shit about anyone, and even when the daughter is possessed, the most frightening thing she does is chill in her room filled with moths or eat raw meat off the ground. Damn, these demons must be getting lazy.

The special effects feel terribly cheapened as well. The aforementioned scenes with the moths are quite well done, but everything else feels like a cheap video game and there's really a problem when a movie places effects in place to replace thrills.

For a 90 minute movie, The Possession feels like it will last until you're in Hell. It takes forever to get going, after it reaches a climax you feel like nothing has happened and the ending feels terribly unsatisfactory and what's even more terrifying; it leads a possibility for a part 2. Let's hope the box picked up in the next story is filled with a reason for existing, something terribly missing from this nightmare.

0/4

A Haunted House

     When will people realize that after 10,000 attempts, spoofing Paranormal Activity will not be funny. Especially considering the majority of the entries in that series are already jokes themselves, jokes don't need jokes inspired by jokes. Next in the assembly line of terrible spoofs is A Haunted House, proof that if you set a release date in the beginning of the year, it's possible to send any type of garbage out for people to see. Marlon Wayans and Essence Atkins star as Malcolm and Keisha, the couple being overtaken by Paranormal Activity/The Devil Inside inspired events, but with the terrible plotting, embarassing and cringe-worthy performances and complete lack of humor, you'll be the one getting screwed over far more then any character in this disaster.

0/4

Iron Man 3

Starting out the Summer on a disappointing note is Iron Man 3, a film, which similar to the main character's suit, falls apart more often then it needs to.

The old gang is still here. Robert Downey is still smartassing his way to victory as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Don Cheadle is always by his side as Colonel James Rhodes, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper, Stark's damsel in distress girlfriend. All three of these actors do the best with the little creativity in the material that they're given. A third paycheck was the clear and only motivation to come back for this.

The newbies.....don't fare as well. The villains this time are about as interesting as watching paint dry. Ben Kingsley plays "The Mandarin", a terrorist who proclaims he really isn't a terrorist, displaying all his acts for the world to see. Sadly his character is about as menacing as a trip to the dentist, there's no intrigue or menace in his delivery or his lines, and a late plot twist shoots for cheap laughs but just ends up feeling cheap.

Guy Pearce doesn't fare much better. He plays Aldrich Killian, a scientist whose bitter that Tony Stark didn't have a meeting with him on the roof years before (no joke), and now he's bent on destroying the world by implanting devices that turn humans into machines that just look like humans. His character feels dull as dirt and the later scenes with the transformations the humanoids make look terribly cartoonish. It's strange how some scenes in the movie look like they cost a million dollars to make and the rest look like child's play

And the less said about Rebecca Hall's "Am I good or bad or good pretending to be bad whose really good" character, the better.

Iron Man 3 just feels so threadbare in terms of plot and pacing, by the end you feel it's like pulling teeth just to see the end credits roll. Humor has been removed, the fun feels forced, and keeping this movie going for 130 minutes just feels like punishment for the eyes and attention span. Add in a terribly bland final battle and a conclusion that feels like a total cop-out, and you have a movie that was bound for destruction. Time to hang up your suit, Tony.

1/4