Red State (2011)

"I fear God, you better believe I fear God"

Kevin Smith hasn't impressed me since "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" way back in 2007. His 2010 outing with Bruce Willis & Tracy Morgan known as "Cop Out" fully let me down and his 2011 outing known as "Red State" followed suit and goes down as Smith's worst film to date.

The film is basically about this cult (for lack of a better word) who kills people for being immoral. There's nothing more to the film than that. 3 teenagers go out to the middle of nowhere where some woman has promised to have sex with all of them at the same time. Soon they are drugged and one of them wakes up in a cage. What follows is the longest and most boring monologue I've ever seen. Michael Parks plays a preacher character who goes on and on about immorality and how everyone should fear God. It takes about 3 1/2 seconds to realize that this is all a religious thing and that this is more of a cult than anything else. Well, they kill some guy for being gay and then one of the 3 teenagers breaks free finding a room full of guns and ammo. Once he shoots his gun a passing by police officer calls for backup and the craziness ensues. This is where John Goodman comes in. Goodman is one of my most favorite actors but sadly his performance isn't that great. Father time hasn't been too good to this man and he looks pretty bad. And as my brother put it and I believed it beforehand, he can't yell anymore; and he sure can't!

The movie is labeled as a horror film, but I don't think it is. I can't really tell you what kind of genre it is, but it's not really a horror film. Almost everyone in the movie dies and the movie is flat out boring. Nothing really happens in the movie, a majority of the film is a shootout between the crazy cult people and the ATF. There's a few semi shocking moments but overall Smith fails to impress me with this movie.

Going back to the boring monologue, it's surprises me how much Smith's own writing has changed in the past 15 years. His early movies were really well done writing wise and "Chasing Amy" still stands as my favorite screenplay ever. Why? Because the dialogue flows so well and the acting is great. In "Red State" the dialogue is boring and doesn't do anything for me. The acting is good, Michael Parks is really good in this movie, but the dialogue is flat and full of shit I just don't care about.

Kevin Smith hasn't had a good movie in 4 years and hasn't had a really great movie in 12 years. The last time he dealt with religion was with "Dogma" in 1999 and it was greatly done and entertaining, this time he decides to deal with religion and the government and it just doesn't work. The film ends [SPOILER!!] with the government admitting that they are deciding to treat most people they don't like as terrorists and taking them out. That's what they were doing with the cult. However, the cult fired on them and killed many of them so they had every right to attack them, plus the cult killed a few people in town for no real reason.

Needless to say the movie didn't do anything for me, and I consider this as Smith's worst film to date. I really hope that he can redeem himself at some point, but I feel that this 15 minutes of fame were over a long time ago.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

"You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness!"

So, when Episode I came out in 1999 I personally was looking more forward to Episode III for one simple reason, I knew it was going to be incredibly dark. Everyone knew that Episode III was going to have the lightsaber battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan and we knew that Anakin would become Darth Vader as well. So we were all looking forward to it. And, for once, with the prequels, I wasn't let down.

Episode III was just as dark as I had hoped and more. It was so dark that it was the only Star Wars film to receive a PG-13 rating. And it had to be dark, Darth Vader is portrayed as a terrible, horrible person who kills whoever gets in his way, so his origin had to be dark. Though you don't see it, Anakin kills almost everyone in the Jedi temple including small children (younglings as they call them). So needless to say the film was pretty damn dark.

The main story is about Anakin and his nightmare about Padme dying in childbirth. Since he had nightmares of his mother dying in Episode II and then it came true, he is very worried about this nightmare coming true. He needs to figure out a way to save Padme. Chancellor Palpatine uses this to his advantage and tells Anakin lies about learning ways of prolonging life if he simply turns to the dark side (without using those words, of course). Well, he finally turns to the dark side helping Palpatine kill Mace Windu. After that the killing begins!

The movie acts as a very good conclusion to the prequel trilogy and the ending of the film ties together the two trilogies pretty well. Though the film is damn good, I have to say there are a few things that makes the film suffer. One of them being the way Padme dies. They literally say in the film that she has "lost the will to live", seriously? Because Anakin turns to the dark side she just decides to stop living? They even claim they have no clue why she is dying. Such a stupid excuse. And why did she have to die? Couldn't she have just left the area and taken the twins with her? Also, speaking of twins, her on screen pregnancy was pretty craptacular. Look at the size of the twins she gives birth to, place them next to each other and there is no way she was carrying both of those twins! That just bothered me.

Oh, and who can forget the infamous "NOOOOO" that Darth Vader yells out after he finds out that Padme is dead. Darth Vader is the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy and he starts out with the big pussy reaction of "NOOOO"?? I honestly don't think George Lucas has ever even seen the original films, even though he made them, I don't think he's actually seen them. Also, I don't think the story of Anakin trying to save Padme as the reason he turned was kind of lame, but I guess Lucas really doesn't know how to do anything other than make fanboys come in their pants.

Overall, I rank this film just under Empire as the 2nd best Star Wars film, simply for the dark undertones and the fantastic acting, mostly from Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

"Someday I will be the most powerful Jedi ever"

Okay, so the utter disappointment in Episode I didn't hurt its box office whatsoever. We all knew Episode II was coming and we all knew it would be in 2002. The only thing we could all do was wait, and hope it would be better than Episode I. I remember in the fall of 2001 I went to see "Monsters Inc." solely because the Episode II teaser was attached to it. I was completely let down when the teaser was seriously just Darth Vader breathing. And before I can say anything else, why the fuck was it just that?? Darth Vader doesn't even make an appearance until the very end of Episode III, everyone knew Vader was not going to be in Episode II. Fucking stupid teaser.

Anyway the day came, I was 18 and I went to see the midnight showing, I was not allowed to see the midnight showing of Episode I cause my mother wouldn't allow me to be up that late on a school night, well I was still in high school and I said fuck it. I saw the movie... and I almost threw up! Personally, Episode II is the WORST in the entire series. The movie sucks so bad even the title was fucking retarded! First off, the movie is boring, none of the other films are boring but this one is. Second, they cast Hayden Christensen who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. I seriously had no clue that George Lucas was capable of casting yet another awful actor in such an iconic role, but he sure did it!

This movie was supposed to do two things: show the romance between Anakin and Padme, and show the beginning of the evil side of Anakin. Well, they accomplished the first one and they did so badly they are basically rubbing it in your face. The second one was also accomplished but in a really crappy way. Yeah, Anakin went nuts when his mother dies in his arms and he kills all the Sand People in that little camp. Fine. But, instead of coming off as angry and evil he comes off much more as asshole then anything else. I didn't feel any sympathy for him when his mother died, I seriously couldn't care less, because George Lucas didn't make me care about him at all. And why is that? Because of his shitty half assed dialogue. Oh, and by the way, this movie has to have the worst line of dialogue I've ever seen in my life! And the line is from Anakin and goes like this:

"Master Obi-Wan would be very grumpy if he found me doing this"

I paraphrased that but the line is "very grumpy" for sure. Very grumpy?? Seriously? This man becomes the intergalactic Hitler and he says "very grumpy"?? Awful, awful dialogue and to make matter worse it was badly delivered too! Also, I feel Natalie Portman (whom I feel is actually pretty good in these films) was really bad in this movie. I love Natalie Portman but her performance in this film was just as bad as anybody else's.

The movie ends with 2 gigantic battle sequences. One between all the Jedi's and pretty much everyone else and the other between Obi-Wan, Anakin & Yoda and Count Dooku (played by the legendary Christopher Lee). Well, Anakin gets beaten like the bitch he is and Yoda comes in and saves the day. I remember being in the theater and when Yoda shows up and whips out his light saber, I yelled out "Oh shit! He's gonna get fucked up!" (Star Wars midnight screenings are always the best). So the movie ends and for some reason Anakin has some HUGE robotic arm to replace the arm he lost in his fight with Count Dooku. I'm not kidding, the arm just seems overly too big for his body. It's not that way in Episode III.

If I hadn't known that Episode III was going to be the darkest of the series, I might not have wanted to keep going after this film. This film just sucks, everything in it sucks. There's nothing exciting about this film at all. It's not even "so bad, it's good" nope, nothing. I admit I saw the film twice in the theater because I was going to try and see the Star Wars films as many times as I could (I saw Episode I three times in the theater) but twice was enough. The second time I remember wanting to leave about 10 minutes in. I've tried watching all 6 films in one day, but I can NEVER get all the way through Episode II without turning it off for a long while.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering"

So back in 1999 Star Wars fans alike were all greatly anticipating the first Star Wars film in 16 years. I was also looking forward to it, but I wasn't as familiar with the series. My first experience seeing the films was with the 1997 Special Edition re-releases, nevertheless a new film was coming and everyone was excited. What they eventually saw would go down in history as one of the crappiest films ever made.

The first teaser trailer made everyone believe the film was to be about Anakin Skywalker's beginnings, you know Darth Vader as a little kid! Well, the actually film wasn't too much about him. The film was more about the early days of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his trainer or whatever, Qui-Gon Jinn. They are basically trying to help out the planet of Naboo from an illegal blockade from the Trade Federation. They end up finding Anakin on the planet of Tatooine where he is living as a slave. After an incredibly long and unnecessary podrace scene Anakin is granted his freedom and accompanies Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to Courasant where he is presented to the Jedi Counsel. They agree he might be the "chosen one" but he can't be trained because of the dark feelings Yoda senses in him. Everyone decides to go back Naboo and fight the good fight. There Anakin somehow is able to "accidentally" destroy the Trade Federation mother ship and in turn saves the day.

Obviously I left some stuff out but for the most part that's the plot of the film. There were a lot of problems myself and many others had with this film. The biggest problem was Jar Jar Binks. Some weird looking fish type creature who's more annoying than anything else. There was really no reason for his character whatsoever. From what I've read Lucas created that character to try and draw in more kids or some crap. If I was a younger kid (I was 15 at the time) I'd probably hate him even more than I originally did!

The main problem I had with this movie and the prequels in general was the terrible acting and dialogue. The dialogue wasn't too bad in this one but the acting sucked ass, especially that from Jake Lloyd, the little kid who (horribly) played Anakin. If you want a good example of the terrible acting take a look at the scene where Qui-Gon and Padme first meet Anakin.

And then comes the contradictions made with the original trilogy. The big one being that in "The Empire Strikes Back" Obi-Wan said that Yoda was the Jedi Master who trained him, and then in this film it was Qui-Gon-Jinn who trained Obi-Wan. In "A New Hope" R2-D2 says that he used to belong to Obi-Wan Kenobi but he reacts as saying "I don't ever remember owning a droid", and yet in the prequels R2-D2 is with Obi-Wan all the fucking time!

Overall the movie is decent but goofy at the same time. The amount of time spent on the podrace is completely insane. The characters are annoying and the contradictions kind of ruin the other films for you. I saw the movies the way they were made, Episode IV through VI and then the prequels, I'd really like to meet someone who never saw any of them and saw them Episode I through VI.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

"It's a boy!"

By 1989 the slasher era had, for the most part, died. Gone were the days of crappy “massacre” films. What was left? D-rated sequels to the popular slashers of the early 1980s. By 1989, Jason had been to the screen 8 times, Michael Myers, 5 times and Freddy with 4 times, now was a good time to have Freddy back for his fifth time. In 1989 there was Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and of course A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. Why not? The Dream Master was the highest grossing Nightmare film out of the original 4, so why not make yet another sequel?

Again, they spent little to no time working out any problems in the script. All they knew was to have a group of teenagers killed off by Freddy, who cares about the details of the script? This movie includes those survivors of the last film (which I always like). We find Alice (Wilcox) finally with her dream man Dan (Hassel) as they are about to graduate. But Freddy is still around and this time he needs to be reborn. Alice witnesses Freddy’s odd birth, and finally he is back. He begins to kill people, but this time he is able to kill people without Alice dragging people into her dreams, they are killed while she is still awake, which she can’t figure out why. Well, Dan is killed and she discovers she is pregnant with his child. The child is dreaming and that is causing the dreams to help Freddy kill.

This film is down there with Freddy’s Revenge and Freddy’s Dead. Simply because it seems that the script was written over a weekend. And again, I go back to the first film, since when has Freddy needed help getting into people’s dreams? I never really understood this. I got it in Dream Warriors it simply gave him more victims at the time, but I never got the idea that he couldn’t get into other people’s dreams. Was he only allowed to kill off the children of the people who killed him? And if that is the case what’s up with Freddy’s Dead and Freddy vs. Jason? Anyway, it’s always enjoyable to see characters from a previous film back for another one. Also, Lisa Wilcox is actually a good actress and it’s nice to see her character get developed more.

Something else to bring up is the rebirth. Why is this in here? Freddy has never needed to be reborn, so why all of a sudden now? It feels to me that they used this as a metaphor to the later pregnancy announcement. Also, audiences knew it was called The Dream Child and the teaser trailer showed a very grotesque, gothic looking stroller that had Freddy’s arm pop out of at the end. So maybe people were expecting some kind of crazy Freddy birth or something. Regardless, it seems very out of place and pointless.

Something they had started a while back but I still liked to see is that Freddy kills people either by their biggest fear or by something they enjoy a bit too much. For example, Greta (Anderson) has an eating complex, so she is killed by being force fed until she chokes. Mark (Seely) loves to draw comic books, so he is killed in a comic book world. However, I did not care to see Alice’s unborn child come to her and tell her things about Freddy. First off, she is still in her first trimester yet the child she sees is like 5 or 6 years old in the dream world. Freddy is trying to coax an unreal, representation of Alice’s unborn child into his world. It makes no sense to me, if Freddy had won did that mean that when the child was born it would be Freddy? Or that she would miscarry? I didn’t really understand what would have happened if he had won the fight.

Anyway, with all these quips, the movie failed. It made only $22 million, a very sad take in, seeing how the previous film made double that. So, it seemed to most people that Freddy was most likely gone, just as Jason and Michael died at the box office that same year, it seemed very likely that the slasher era had finally died for good. But, that was not the case, Jason, Michael and Freddy would be back again in the 1990s.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

"Jesus Christmas! Holy Jesus goddamn! Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!"

The Friday the 13^th series proved to be quite successful for Paramount during the 1980s, but they also knew when it was getting old and so in 1984 they decided to kill off the franchise, or so we thought. Calling the film The Final Chapter as opposed to Friday the 13^th Part 4 was a marketing technique, make the audiences think that this is the end and more people will come to see the movie.

Again, the film has very little to do with the original film. In fact in this case the film has nothing to do with the original film, aside from Jason being in the movie. The hockey mask is back and is now a trademark of Jason’s even appearing on the theatrical poster in a puddle of blood with a knife through the eye. Tommy Jarvis (Feldman) is now the main character, a young boy who loves making scary masks. They live out in the woods somewhere, him, his sister Trish (Beck) and their mother (Freeman). A house across the way is rented out by a bunch of horny teenagers and let the killings begin! The movie begins right where the last one left off, Jason’s body is taken from the farmhouse seen in part 3 to a morgue where he quickly offs the mortician and a nurse to escape. Everything else plays out like a common Friday the 13^th film until the end, when young Tommy shaves his head to make himself look like Jason then quickly takes care of Jason ending the carnage.

This is one of the more entertaining Friday films, Corey Feldman was huge at the time and really brought something to the series. Parts 4, 5 and 6 proved that a woman need not headline the film for a slasher film to become successful. Part 4 also saw the return of makeup wizard Tom Savini. In interviews he claimed he created the monster, now let him destroy him. And so they did, however not for long since the following year, Friday the 13^th Part V: A New Beginning was released. I think that calling it The Final Chapter brought in quite a bit more audience and the studio saw that as a positive.

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D (1982)

"No! You CAN'T be alive!"

With one great film, another must follow, or so is the case with slasher films. Friday the 13^th Part 2 did so well, why not make another one? But, there was something that was coming back into light during the 1980s, it had been a big thing in the 1950s and it was about to have a come back in the 1980s and that thing was 3D films. Why not try it out with what was becoming America’s favorite killer?

Friday the 13^th Part 3 3D (as it was originally titled) followed the character of Chris (Kimmell) and her friends as they take a trip to her parent’s farm for the weekend. Chris is a little on edge, but doesn’t let on why. There she finds Rick (Kratka) her old boyfriend, but he can’t figure out what is going on with her either. Finally she cracks and admits that Jason attacked her once after she had had a fight with her parents (though she doesn’t refer to him as Jason). But, little to her knowledge, Jason is at the farm stalking and killing her friends. In the end it is up to Chris, as our final girl, to save the day.

In 2009, Paramount Pictures finally released the movie on DVD (and eventually Blu-Ray) in 3D! Even though it's standard red/blue 3D, it works and I think it works much better on Blu-Ray! That being said, I think this movie could have been better if it weren’t for the 3D. Seeing it in 2D is annoying because they have so many things being thrown at or passed to the camera, and without the 3D it’s extremely annoying and stupid. The film is entertaining, which is what these films should be doing, but there are a lot of problems as well with this film. First off, the stoner characters were not needed. They were second rate rip offs of Cheech and Chong, who were popular at the time. Since Crazy Ralph was killed off in the last film they decided to try and bring another “prophet of doom” into this movie, with some crazy old guy who just happens to be sleeping in the middle of the road with a severed eye ball (which he quickly holds close to the screen, for that creepy 3D effect).

The ending to this movie is probably the dumbest of them yet. After Chris supposedly kills Jason, by hanging him from the barn, she decides to take a boat out into the lake (just like the first film), there she sees Jason losing his mind inside one of the buildings, he quickly breaks through a wooden door and comes after her, but she awakens from a nightmare only to find herself in another nightmare, this time having Mrs. Voorhees jump out of the water (just like Jason did in the first film). Then she awakens for real where we find her strapped to a gurney being placed inside an ambulance. Okay, the problem I have with this is first off, why did they feel like trying to end the movie like the first one? It wasn’t really paying homage to the first one, it was more like they were making fun of it. Second, why would Mrs. Voorhees be in Chris’s dream in the first place? She never knew anything about her, nor had she ever seen her. But, in her nightmare she was wearing the sweater from the first film and even had the same hair do. And why was her head reattached to her body? This ending was terrible.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable film. If you can ever see it in 3D I would suggest it over the 2D version. It’s still a decent film, but much more entertaining in 3D.