For The Love Of Movies

12 Monkeys- This is one of those movies that you watch if you want to be thoroughly entertained yet greatly confused at the same time. This is a Science Fiction Thriller starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

The basic plot, without giving anything away, is that in the year 1996 a deadly virus wiped out 5 billion people on earth and now humanity is living underground to escape the virus. However, scientists in the future are trying to go back in time and change the course of history so humans can retake the surface of the world.

The movie is largely a question of sanity. You'll spend a good portion of the movie wondering what's reality and what's in Bruce Willis's character, James Cole's head.

A standing ovation should be given to Brad Pitt for his acting in this movie. Absolutely superb. He won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor for that year, and much deserved as he plays a radical mental patient who is largely a source of comedic relief while believing himself to be the more sane person on the planet.

If you enjoy Science Fiction movies this is a must see. The ending is not necessarily satisfying, but the movie is enjoyable enough that this can be overlooked. If nothing else, watching this movie for the acting will be worth while.
 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- It's been a long while since I read the book, and it's one of the few that I'd only read once, so there were several parts that I wasn't sure I remembered from that particular book, but the Harry Potter lovers tell me that it was fairly true to the book at least until the end, so as far as the rest of the movies have gone, this one is pretty good.

Obviously if you are a fan of the Harry Potter titles you're going to adore the newest movie (undoubtedly you've already seen it a dozen or so times) and you're probably going to forgive anything that is amiss and love everything that they've changed for the movies.

If you're not a complete fan but have been following the movies, you should watch it just so you can see the whole set.

The basic story is that our heroes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are now deep into their hormonal teenage years and getting into relationships. In fact, this is largely the central concept for much of the film. If you didn't know, there's a lot of jealousy going around and then everyone pairs off. Meanwhile there is chaos in the world due to Voldemort's return and there's a lot of danger at Hogworts. Spoiler: This is the movie where Dumbledore dies.

The best part about the movie for me turned out to be the fact that you felt so much sympathy for Draco Malfoy, who is, of course, Harry's enemy.

The movie is beautifully made, lots of attention to set details and effects. There are a few scenes that seem to jump from one place to another, probably because the budget was all spent on the other pretty things and they couldn't attempt it, but it didn't take anything major away from the plot or the film itself.

The biggest changes between book and movie, as with all Harry Potter movies, is at the end where the fight at Hogworts never takes place. Also, the title of the movie completely loses its importance for about half the movie and then is brought up again at the end when the audience has stopped caring, and almost no deal is made of it at all. Still, you can get past that point.

Honestly, if you haven't been watching the movies up until this point, I don't see any reason why you would want to see this one at all, but if you've been watching them then there's no reason why you won't enjoy The Half-Blood Prince.

Silent Hill- Giant WHAT?!?! Seriously. Let me explain. This movie was basically created for the fans of the Silent Hill games which are known for being some of the freakiest horror games out there and for having incredibly detailed and yet completely crazy plots with a lot of obscure details that they leave entirely up to your interpretation.

Well, the people most likely to be upset with the movie are the hardcore fans of the games as it were. IF you have played the games or at least have closely followed their individual plots, you spend at least half the film trying to figure out which details were taken from which game and who the main characters are supposed to be like, etc.

For those of you who haven't played the game, I'll sum up the movie so you won't feel behind. There's this little girl named Sharon who was adopted by a nice family. The movie starts off with Sharon having sleep-walked off and her mother, Rose, running after her and finding her in a sort of trance and saving her from plunging to her death. Then Sharon screams the words "Silent Hill" over and over again. Rose decides to take Sharon to Silent Hill to see if it stops the sleepwalking, against Christopher, the father's, wishes.

Well, if you know horror movies, you know that this can't be good. Silent Hill is a place that burned at one point and it's a ghost town on top of a hill now. When Rose is taking Sharon there, she gets questioned and then pulled over by a oddly suspicious cop-lady and then goes insane and guns it on away up to Silent Hill, now with the cop chasing her. Half-way up she suddenly sees a little girl in the middle of the road, swerves, and hits her head on the steering wheel. When she comes to Sharon is missing and ashes are falling everywhere. Here the crazy begins.

The thing with Silent Hill, which isn't necessarily obvious at first, is that there are several different worlds or realities attached to it. There's the normal reality, where the town is in the present day, there's a dark world filled with all the monsters and demons and gore the title is famous for- including Pyramid Head, but more on him later- and the world of ashes where the world is frozen in a sort of alternate reality. Rose, and the police woman named Cybil transition between the worlds and encounter the separate horrors attached to each.

There is a large witch-hunt theme to the movie which isn't prominent in the games, but which you can follow along with alright.

The setting and the effects in this movie are absolutely beautiful and if you're into cinematography then this may be something you'd be highly interested in. For those of us craving coherentness and plot, we're just a little left behind.

I have a feeling that they got gamers to do the writing for the movie, because although there is a lot of stuff in the movie that makes some sort of twisted sense, the character's reactions rarely seem to. In fact, up until we get deeply engrossed in the town of Silent Hill itself, the characters all seem to feel the need to have sudden spurts of incredibly stupid and unprompted insanity that simply seems to be necessary for forcing parts from the game's plots to be part of the movie's plot. For example, why would Cybil feel the need to follow Rose's car after seeing her with Sharon? The explanation they give doesn't hold much water, but by the time you get it you've stopped caring anyhow.

The strangest thing in the movie is the homage they pay to Pyramid Head, who is, for some reason, the most popular character in the series and has his own large fanbase. He's certainly freaky and dangerous in the movie, and they give him a nice scene specifically designed to make you feel like vomiting, but otherwise his presence just makes no sense. In fact, the way he acts makes no sense. The first time you see him in the game, this is what you see (and be warned, it is sensitive stuff) LINK. In the movie, this is the interpretation you get: LINK. Both creepy, but for some reason Pyramid Head is a lot more formidable and persistent in the movie than he ever was in the game.

I suppose that's all picky stuff, but let's skip to the ending! For all the bad guys who get theirs in the end, there really is no feeling of resolution. In fact, unless you're good at assuming, there's really no explanation at all for what is going on in the ending. If you're looking for relief, you won't be getting any, and you won't be getting any clarification either.

And for all the hype I'd hear about Silent Hill before seeing it, I was so hung up on everything that simply made no sense at all (why did Rose NEVER pick up a good weapon when she knew there were demons out there?) that I wasn't frightened of it at all. There were moments, but nothing that's going to linger in my nightmares.


As far as my October horror month goes, I'm going to classify this one as a 5 on a scale from 1-10.