The Hunger Games

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
The Hunger Games
Released 3/23/12, now in theaters

Let the summer movie season begin!  Well, maybe about five weeks early.  This week saw the release of one of the most anticipated movies of the year, The Hunger Games.  This is the first movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins' book trilogy (2nd book adaptation, Catching Fire, is due in 2013).  Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the story.  You might remember her as Mystique from last year's X-Men:  First Class. 

Katniss lives in the dystopian society of Panem which encompasses all of the countries that once formed North America.  Panem is divided into 12 districts (once 13).  There was an uprising by the districts over 70 years ago that was defeated by government.  The reigning government has made sure the 12 districts do not forget their failure.  For the past 74 years, they have made each district supply one boy and one girl between the ages of 12-18 annually for the Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is a brutal, televised fight to the death between the 24 children (called tributes) chosen to participate.  Katniss is a 16 year old teenager who lives in the coal mining 12th District.  She's an expert tracker and hunter (good with a bow, too).  She volunteers for the Hunger Games to take the place of her younger sister, Primrose, who is unfortunately chosen to participate in the 74th annual games.  Her male counterpart from the district is Peeta Mellark, a baker's son who we find out later has admired Katniss from afar for quite awhile  (sucks he has to kill her now right?). 

Katniss and Peeta are taken to the Capitol where they are mentored by Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), the winner of one of the past games.  Haymitch is a burned out middle aged man who is haunted by his participation in the games years ago.  He finds life much easier being drunk.  He does, however, take a liking to his new charges and advises both on how to survive.  In this game of life and death, likability among the masses is just as important to survival as physical skill.  After Peeta admits his crush for Katniss on national television, Haymitch urges  Katniss and Peeta to act as a loving couple in the arena as this will gain them support and sponsors that could prove useful during the games.  He also provides one more bit of sage advice.  Just before the start of the games, he urges Katniss not to take the easy temptation of grabbing weapons when the buzzer sounds, but to head for the high grounds of the dense forest that serves as the battlefield.  He proves to be a prophet as no less than six tributes are killed by their peers within the first few minutes and exactly half the tributes fall within the first eight hours.  Katniss manages to flee to the woods with a small backpack of supplies amidst the initial carnage.  She spends the competition fleeing from a pack of tributes who have banded together to hunt the remaining contestants.  Shockingly, Peeta is among this group.  However, he is only here for survival, and, it appears to help Katniss.  Katniss outmaneuvers the group with the assistance of Peeta and another female tribute named Rue.  She also obtains a bow and quiver of metallic arrows from a dead tribute.  Now armed with weapons, Katniss tries to survive the competition with her wits, deadly bow skills, and a lot of luck.

I really didn't think much of The Hunger Games from the trailers I saw, but decided to give it a shot after the moviegoer reviews I read.  I'm glad I did.  The movie does a very good job of depicting how the tributes are manipulated by the government to fight to the death.  Many of the tributes do not come from affluent backgrounds.  In Katniss's case, the region is dirt poor.  The tributes are enticed with good, plentiful food and luxury apartments.  It's no wonder that they are willing to break each other's necks with the possibility of more luxury if they win.  Of course Districts 1 and 2 don't need much incentive as they seem to be trained for combat from the womb.  The movie ends on a weird note with the President of Panem (Donald Sutherland) not looking at all happy watching the victory celebration.  Maybe that's due to the Panem government being "shown up" as Haymitch says. There's an unresolved love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale which I assume will be followed in the coming movies.  Gale is Katniss's best friend who, like Peeta, seems to want to be more.  He's her slightly older hunting buddy who she asks to take care of her family while she is away and in case of her death. 

I just read this movie has grossed $155 million this weekend.  I know that's a record of some kind, but let's not get crazy.  It's a good, solid movie.  I will see the next two chapters. It is sentimental without being sappy (hear that Twilight?).  The action is realistic and brutal.  It still hasn't made me forget my longing for The Avengers though.  Maybe nothing will, but this is a decent enough distraction until May 4.  Good but not great in my opinion.  Then again, I felt that way about Harry Potter at first.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

 *** 1/4 stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

The Innkeepers

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
The Innkeepers
Released 2/3/12

What happens when Ghost Hunters meets The Shining? You get something like The Innkeepers, a 2012 movie that I don’t ever recall hitting theaters. You can currently rent it On Demand through AT&T U-Verse through March 31. I’m not sure if On Demand is the same with every provider, but if you’re interested in a night of good old fashioned scares, be my guest and rent this “classic.” Just because people don’t remember this being released doesn’t mean it’s bad right?

The Innkeepers follows two would-be ghost chasers who happen to work as front desk clerks at the Yankee Pedlar Inn. The Yankee Pedlar Inn is a New England hotel whose best days are behind her. The Inn doesn’t attract many guests these days and the owners have decided to shut it down, leaving our two intrepid (?) clerks/hunters, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), to operate the hotel in its final weeks. This staff of two really has no interest in hotel management. However, being students of the supernatural, they are very interested in the old legends of the hotel being haunted. They spend their time searching the Inn for traces of paranormal activity which Luke will post on his website. That is, if he finishes it! They don’t find much until Leanne Rease-Jones(Kelly McGillis) checks in. Remember Kelly McGillis? The attractive woman who played opposite Harrison Ford in Witness and Tom Cruise in Top Gun. The years have not been kind, but back to the story. Leanne is a former television star who shares the clerks’ fascination with ghosts. Together, they begin to unravel the mysteries of the Inn with deadly consequences.

This movie commits the cardinal sin when making horror movies. It’s not scary or even creepy. I would have settled for creepy. The first corpse/ghost you see is 51 minutes into the movie. Yes, I did say 51 minutes into a 102 minute movie! Prior to that, it’s our two goofy clerks (mostly Sara) snooping around the hotel finding nothing. After Sara wakes up to a corpse bride ghost in her bed, the horror comes a little more frequently, but not frequently enough for this horror maven. The movie is directed by Ti West. His other credits include Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever and The House of the Devil. 

I’ve read other reviews of this film and the director and it’s mostly glowing commentary. Well count me as one of the detractors! Sorry, but this was a total waste of my time. And to think I paid $5 for this tripe. I’m thinking of calling AT&T and asking for $10 back!

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

0 stars

Ratings Legend

Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

Silent House

Reviews from the Dark Side presents: 
Silent House
Released 3/9/12, now in theaters

My greatest fear in seeing this movie was with as much hype as it was receiving, the movie wouldn't come close to living up to it.  The trailers seemed to hype it as the new standard in terror.  I prayed it wouldn't  be the waste of time that Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity was (sorry fans of both movies, but I just didn't get it).  After seeing it, I have to say that it violated the one rule for horror movies; you have to be scary or, at the very least, unsettling.  Maybe horror wasn't what the director and producers were attempting, but it was sure presented that way with the marketing.  This movie is more psychological thriller than horror (a fine line sometimes, I know), so I was left a little disappointed.  However, not all is lost.  The movie does have its merits.

The story focuses on Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), a young woman assisting her father and uncle in cleaning up the damage done to the family summer cottage by squatters.  Sarah begins to hear noises in the house that hint there is someone or something in the dwelling with her other than relatives.  The deeper she goes into the house, the more she hears and sees things that shouldn't be there.  When she finds her father seriously injured and unconscious, she desperately tries to escape from house.  She manages to get out of the house and encounters her uncle driving up to the cottage.  Despite her begging her uncle to call for help, he is determined to rescue his brother.  Sarah is frightened into following her uncle into the house again.  However, there's one problem.  The father's body has disappeared.  Matters get worse when Sarah's uncle is knocked unconscious and his body disappears.  What is causing this?  Is the house haunted?  Is there a serial killer on the loose?  Why is Sarah seeing a little girl playing with bottles in a bathtub?  Why is blood oozing from the walls? 

The payoff at the end brings everything together nicely.  Characters' actions that don't seem to make sense at first, make a twisted kind of sense later.  I liked the last 15 minutes much better than I liked the rest of the movie which is why I'll give it a somewhat favorable review.  I just wish the audience didn't have to sift through so much minutiae to get to fruity center of the tootsie pop.  The movie was directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau of Open Water  fame.

 Elizabeth Olsen does a very credible job of  portraying sheer terror, I'm still a little disappointed this wasn't an actual, true blue horror story as marketed.  Most of the movie is much ado about nothing until the final act.  As a comparison, think of the movie as more Identity than Amityville Horror. 

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

**1/2 stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit! 
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee. 
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here. 

Leaves of Grass

Reviews from the Dark Side presents:
Leaves of Grass
Released 2009, now on DVD

In this quirky comedy, Edward Norton plays the role of twins Bill and Brady Kincaid.  Bill is years removed from his Oklahoma roots.  He has made a name for himself as an Ivy League professor at Brown University.  Brady on the other hand, is a small time pot grower in Oklahoma who has learned how to grow some of the best marijuana in the area.  Brady is equally as brilliant as Bill.  Actually Brady has a higher IQ than Bill according to their mother. 

Brady has gotten himself into some trouble.  He owes a high end dealer a couple hundred thousand dollars for his sophisticated pot growing equipment.  The dealer is Pug Rothbaum (played by Richard Dreyfuss).  Brady has a pregnant girlfriend who he has promised that he will stop growing weed except for himself when the child his born.  Brady delivers the message to two of Rothbaum's dealers that he has no intention of expanding his business despite the large sum of money he owes their boss.  Brady comes up with an elaborate plan involving his twin.  He needs to extract himself from the situation, but, that means tricking the local sheriff who is watching Brady and tracking North to meet Pug himself.  However, going North means traveling territory that belongs to pot growers that used to supply Pug before Brady.  Needless to say, these growers aren't fond of Brady.  But how does he get his brother back to Oklahoma?  Bill never returns Brady's calls and hasn't visited since he left for the East coast.  He wants no part of what he believes to be his "backwater" family.  So Brady has his partner Bolger contact Bill to report that Brady has been murdered by a crossbow.  When Bill arrives in Tulsa, he's greeted by Bolger who takes him to a small market to get a drink.  Unfortunately, it is a market frequented by rival pot growers who hate Brady.  Bill is on the wrong end of a beatdown until Bolger saves him from further injury.  So now it appears the plan will work as planned with enemies mistaking Bill as Brady with a haircut and a shave (oh, and Bolger did give Brady's hat to Bill to wear).  Now it's time for Brady to reveal he's still alive to Bill.  Predictably, he's not too happy he was duped into making the trek to Oklahoma.  Somehow Brady does convince him to stay through the weekend while he puts his master plan in motion.  Bill has no idea what Brady's plans are.  He visits his mother (Susan Sarandon) in a resthome the next day and manages to fool the local sheriff.  Here's a glimpse into the mother's mentally.  She's in the resthome not because she needs to be there.  She just likes it there.    She's also the one who introduced the twins to pot.  Bill isn't fond of how he and Brady were raised by their mother.  Brady and Bolger meet with Pug while Bill is at the resthome.  The meeting ends violently.  The rest of the movie involves a fake hate crime, a crazy stranger that Bill meets on the plane to Tulsa, and a real crossbow incident.

The movie has a great cast with Edward Norton, Richard Dreyfuss, and Susan Sarandon.  Edward Norton is one of the most underrated actors today in my opinion.  Amazing he hasn't won an Oscar yet.  He transitions from the educated Bill to the brilliant bumpkin Brady flawlessly, accent and all.  The movie also stars Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson (writer and director), Melanie Lynskey (Rose in Two and Half Men) , Maggie Siff (Tara in Sons of Anarchy) in supporting roles.  This movie is a nice way to spend a lazy afternoon.  Not out of this world good, but highly entertaining.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

***stars(out of 5)

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee. Buy this on DVD when released!
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here. Get this DVD goes without saying.

In My Sleep

Reviews from the Dark Side presents:
In My Sleep
Released 2010, now on DVD


Marcus Turner is many things.  He's a masseuse, an artist, a sex addict, and...a sleepwalker.

Marcus has had this problem since he was a kid.  Of course he can't remember what he does when he sleepwalks.  Throughout the movie we find that he can do some amazing things when he's not conscious like solving Sudoku puzzles, having sex with his best friend's wife, and maybe even murdering said wife.  Marcus wakes up one morning covered in blood with a bloody knife on his bedroom floor.  The same knife that he just received as a gift at his surprise party the previous night.  Things get worse when his friend's (Justin's) wife (Ann) is found dead with multiple stab wounds two days later.  Yes, the same wife he slept with previously while sleepwalking.  So how does he explain this?  He really can't.  He can't even trust himself.  Seems logical that he might do something crazy while he's asleep.  At the beginning of the movie we find him waking up in a cemetery close to his father's grave wearing nothing but his skivvies.  He wakes up in Ann's car after he's had sex with her not remembering the event.  There's a trail of blood leading from his apartment.  Or, is he being set up?  What's with the mysterious phone call he receives when he's out with Justin and Ann?  Why is his sex addict friend, Gwen, trying to get him to confess?  Does Marcus' dead father hold the key to all of this?

First of all, while I was interested to find out the answer to all of this craziness, it took too long to get there.  I think the director, Allen Wolf, is a little emotionally stunted.  Characters' reactions to situations make no sense.  For instance, Marcus' mother knows about her son's sleepwalking and helps to cover something up when he's a child.  Motherly love right?  Then when he's an adult, she seems to hate him and wants nothing to do with him.  When Gwen finds out that he handcuffs himself to his bed to keep from wandering at night, she's more angry than anything else.  Why angry?  Scared, OK.  Disturbed, maybe.  But angry?  At what?  I think the proper reaction here is don't upset the crazy sleepwalker!  And another thing that doesn't make a lot of sense.  We find out that Gwen is Ann's sister.  When she's trying to get Marcus to confess, she goes from angry and threatening to expose him to the police to trying to seduce a confession out of him all in the span of three minutes.  The detective who's trying to find Ann's killer really has no reason to suspect Marcus at first, but she plays bad cop trying to scare him into a confession.  The director also mixes up his genres.  He adds elements of horror in what is a crime thriller.  Very misplaced imagery with hands jumping out and grabbing, a hooded Vaderesque figure that has key lock for a face, a faceless woman crawling in Marcus' bed...

This is not a completely awful movie.  It has a good premise, but not good execution.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

** stars (barely-out of 5)

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee. Buy this on DVD when released!
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here. Get this DVD goes without saying.