Movies, Movies by Rob Williams

Brick

Ted and I watched the dvd "Brick" last night.

If you haven't seen Brick, it's a teen film/mystery that is done as a sort of 50s crime noir film-- though it's set in present day. It was excellent. The star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, further proves just what an amazing actor (after his dazzling turn in "Mysterious Skin") he is. Brick is filled with great noir/gumshoe speak and incredible shots. The director, Rian Johnson, is sure to be a name to watch after this.

The Descent

Finally a horror movie that I can praise.

Saw the movie "The Descent" yesterday-- (while Ted saw Talledega Nights-heh, heh) and it scared, creeped, and freaked the bejebus out of me! An extremely well done scare. Someone actually did it right this time.

If you don't know of the movie, it's about six women who go tunneling/exploring caves in the Appalachias and find they are trapped underground with these freaky creatures.

The movie played to so many of my (and I'm sure your) fears: claustrophobia, the dark, dirt, scary pearly white inbred mole people who live in tunnels. It was incredibly, even beautifully, shot with the use of colour and shadows and light (of the colours, the NY Times stated:

With a nod to childhood, Mr. Marshall carves out an increasingly unsettling and claustrophobic shadow world principally by keeping the lights down. He also toys with color, interspersing the white beams from the women’s headlamps with washes of green and red from their glow-sticks and flares. The ingenious palette adds to the spooky beauty of the otherworldly setting, which, with its vaultlike chambers, wavy crawlways and spiky stalactites, takes on unmistakable sexual overtones.

It was also amazingly directed (sorry for all the -ly words). The director payed such homage to classic horror films without spoofing or ripping them off-- scenes and images evoked such scares as the blood prom scene in Carrie, Blair Witch, Dawn of the Dead, and others.

It truly terrified me, I was on the edge of my seat, but still left the theater so happy and so thrilled. As the Chicago Sun Times put it:

Finally, a scary movie with teeth, not just blood and entrails -- a savage and gripping piece of work that jangles your nerves without leaving your brain hanging. And so, for a change, you emerge feeling energized and exhilarated rather than enervated, or merely queasy.

I hope that word of mouth spreads about this film, for it's really one of the funnest, scariest movies I've seen since Silence of the Lambs.

GO SEE IT ALREADY!!

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