Reviews by moviebuff15

"Martha Marcy May Marlene" is an amazing cinematic jolt to the nervous system, plain and simple. It stars Elizabeth Olsen as Martha, a girl who escapes to her sister and her brother-in-law's lakeside retreat after involving herself with some scary people.

But this is not the ordinary 'victim escapes near death- victim fights back story.' By intertwining Martha's new life with scenes from her past, we are forced to confront the ambiguities of the situation- is Martha being followed, or does she simply perceive it that way? Was Martha crazy before the events leading to her escape from the cult?

What exactly is Martha's secret? On the surface, she seems like a normal young girl, but inside her subconscious, an inner war rages. Elizabeth Olsen knocks it out of the park as fragile, damaged Martha, running from inner demons and stuck in a constant state of shellshock.

By making her compliant in some of the cult's wrongdoings and philosophies, Martha becomes a puzzling character, with a hint of malice in her doe-like eyes. I almost hated her for what she did to Sarah, another girl in the cult, but at the same time I felt as if I kind of understood her.

Soon up to their eyeballs in responsibilities taking care of Martha, Martha's sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) despair at the direness of their situation. Meanwhile, memories of life in the cult and cult leader Patrick (John Hawkes in an icky, slimy, absolutely brilliant performance) lie just below the surface.

This is a nearly perfect film, fueled by palpable suspense and great stylistic touches, including a shaky cam moment early on, that, surprisingly, works. On a final note, I was surprised that the ideology behind the cult wasn't gone into more.

On the other hand, it kind of makes sense, since, ultimately it doesn't matter if the cult is dedicated to Jesus or free love or the God of tits and wine (to quote the great Tyrion in "Game Of Thrones.) All that matters is the influence of the cult and what cults do to people.

This movie is about what cults do to people. To dwell on the cults ideals would be simply superfluous. "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is brilliant filmmaking, and will hopefully stand the test of time in the annals of indie films. Fin.

"The Princess Bride" is that rare classic that can be enjoyed by all members of the family, regardless of age. It is also a cute, mostly clean comedy that won't bore adults or go over the heads of kids.

In plotline #1, A sick little boy (played by 80's child-star Fred Savage) is presented by his grandfather (Peter O'Toole) with- not an Atari video game, as he no doubt would've hoped- but a leather bound book, 'The Princess Bride.'

We are soon pulled into the book and it happenings- of its characters, and lively scenes of swashbuckling and daring-do. Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn) loves Wesley (Carey Elwes,) a lowly stable boy, so naturally she torments him and heckles him with constant petty demands (I've never understood why these kind of women always get hitched first- ideas?)

Wesley has neither the lineage nor the money to wed Buttercup, so he seeks his fortune at sea, where he meets an uncertain fate at the hands of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Swearing never to love again, the beautiful Buttercup is nevertheless pursued by the douchey Prince Humperdinck, but her kidnapping at the hands of a trio of oddballs only complicates things for the princess.

The script here is a lot of fun, and the actors' near-perfect delivery of their lines results in one of the most quotable films in movie history. The acting is strong even from the minor players, including Christopher Guest as the devious Count Tyrone Dugan and Mel Smith as the expressive and quite sadistic albino.

One complaint is Buttercup herself, who takes the cake as the most insipid movie princess of all time, and that includes the sappy, crappy, fragile princesses of early Disney. When she isn't planning her own suicide and badgering Wesley, Buttercup can usually be found crying tears that don't seem to dampen her crystal-clear complexion.

Despite my animosity towards the fragile, soppy heroine, I concede that "The Princess Bride" is a both a perennial classic and a movie worth cherishing and sharing with the younger generations, who may nonetheless be skeptical of the 80s' effects. Fun and excellently written, "The Princess Bride" is worth past-tripping for.

There is no doubt- John Cleese is a funny guy, although he has his occasional misfires (most recently his animated works "Shrek Forever After" and "Planet 51.") Here he is not "Fawlty Towers" funny, but still manages to amuse and entertain, and he is backed up by a great cast, including Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Kevin Kline as a psychotic pseudo-intellectual dolt with a preference for mangling Nietzsche.

Manipulative Wanda (Curtis,)stuttering animal lover Ken (Palin,) nutcase Otto (Kline) and George, the one with the plan, all aspire to rob a jewelry store. Wanda, who is fiddling with all the mens' emotions, and Otto, her incompetent lover, decide to double cross George and steal the diamonds, but George anticipates their move, and entrusts the key to the safe to Ken.

Enter Archie Leach (John Cleese,) a repressed barrister stuck in a boring marriage to an unlikable shrew, and defending George when an 'anonymous tip' (AKA Otto) results in George's arrest. Meanwhile, Wanda decides to seduce Archie to get information from about George's case, and Ken attempts to kill a witness to the heist, with unexpected consequences.

This movie features the crew that did "Monty Python," which divides audiences depending on their sense of humor. Not a fan of "Python"'s deliberately ridiculous, absurd sense of humor? Never fear. "A Fish Called Wanda" shares little in common with it, and benefit s from humorous characters and sequences.

It's not for kids, but the violence here is more comic than disturbing, save for one scene (pictured below) that may prove to be more troublesome than funny. Honestly I didn't find it bust-a-gut-funny, but all the actors give great comedic performances, and the twists and turns will leave you laughing.

Overall, "A Fish Called Wanda" is a funny 80's comedy, incorporating that droll British humor to achieve comedic goodness, if not greatness. Worth a watch for the oddball near-genius of it. Recommended.

Here's the thing about Jim Carrey- he can deliver a serious and heartfelt performance when you can rein him in and make him sit still for an hour and a half. He's like that ADHD-slash-spastic kid you knew in grammar school who ran laps around the class room to the chagrin of an obese, middle-aged teacher who thought in despair- I am NOT being paid enough for this.

"Liar Liar" gives Carrey the chance to spaz out, make ridiculous faces, and in one scene, literally beat himself up in a public bathroom. So don't expect the melancholic poignancy of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "The Truman Show." But if you want to laugh mindlessly at a comic actor at the height of his powers, this is one to give a watch.

Carrey plays Fletcher Reed, a slick lawyer who lies constantly, much to the exasperation and disappointment of his ex-wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) and son Max (Justin Cooper.) Audrey is dating sweet but dopey Jerry (Carey Elwes of "As You Wish" stardom,) but is ambivalent about taking the next step.

When Fletcher fails to show up for Max's fifth birthday, Max wishes his that for one day, his dad couldn't tell a lie, which turns out to have unexpected consequences for Fletcher. When Fletcher wakes up the next day, he discovers that he is physically incapable of lying, and finds himself in big trouble when he is forced to support buxom bimbo Samantha Cole (Jennifer Tilly in a court case.

Although the actors stand back as Jim Carrey takes center stage, doing what Jim Carrey does best- being an unapologetic man-child. The script is witty and sharp, taking full advantage of the outlandish premise. The movie does best when it is treading thoroughly ridiculous territory.

I didn't really buy the emotional scenes, for example, when Carrey screams "I hold myself in contempt," I laughed before realizing that the scene was meant to convey Fletcher's guilt and anguish. Was I being inappropriate, or was the scene just that silly? You decide.

"Liar Liar" is a funny comedy that doesn't have a lot of depth, but is a great good-mood film for the family, except the littlest members (the jokes can get a little risqué.) It proves that although serious Carrey is good, Jim Carrey is also talented when you simply let him fly off the handle. Good fun.

Fast-paced, gory, and with a razor-sharp sense of humor, "The Cabin in the Woods" borrows elements from older horror films and twists them around, making them it's own. Never since "Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil" have I seen such originality and creative scriptwriting in a modern horror-comedy.

"The Cabin in the Woods" is truly a marvel to watch, and stands as an excellent addition to co-writer Joss Whedon's repertoire. The plot starts out 'typical' and soon reveals itself to be a lot murkier (and more awesome) than it initially seemed.

Five friends- innocent Dana (Kristen Connolly,) 'cool dude' Curt (Chris Hemsworth,) slutty Jules (Anna Hutchinson,) amusing pothead Marty (Fran Kranz,) and sensitive guy Holden (Jesse Williams) go off on a trip to a cabin in the woods. Marty quickly establishes himself as my favorite, with his pseudo-profound pot-addled ramblings and surprising perceptiveness.

But wait! Something is amiss! As the gang break the various rules of horror-film etiquette (Don't have sex. Don't go in the basement. Don't wander off...) they find themselves fighting for their lives. But it gradually becomes clear that a lot more then the lives of a couple of college kids may be at stake.

Naturally, the pothead gets all the best lines- from the very beginning, Marty establishes himself as a humorously addled and continuously likable presence, even if half the time you don't know wat the hell he's talking about. The acting is good, not extraordinary, but decent particularly for this kind of movie.

One of my favorite character actors, Richard Jenkins is here, as an ethically dodgy and somewhat dirty old man. The script is funny, cool, and sometimes willfully ludicrous, as characters get bear traps in the back and somehow get up with little to no permanent injuries.

"The Cabin in the Woods" is definitely worth a watch to anyone who wants to see a new twist on an old story. You actually root for these kids to live, which is a rare occurrence in a dead-teenager movie. The script is often funny, sometimes hysterical, and worth a go alone for the killer-unicorn sequence. My professional opinion? Watch it, and don't take it too seriously.

"Reservoir Dogs," Quentin Tarantino's second film after the little known low-budgeter "My Best Friend's Birthday," is a good and polished early effort from a brilliant and controversial filmmaker.

A lot of Tarantino's trademarks are present here- extreme violence, black humor, brilliant dialogue, and unflinching portrayal of racism- but a little more emotion is present than with Tarantino's other works, including a rather touching relationship between two of the main characters, Mr. White and Mr. Orange.

The color-coordinated characters, Mr. White (Harvey Keitel,) Mr. Blonde (MIchael Madsen,) Mr. Orange (Tim Roth,) Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi,) Mr. Blue (Edward Bunker,) and Mr. Brown (Director Tarantino)- a group of criminals who are cornered by the police during a diamond heist.

After a bloody shootout- a group of them escape, including Mr. Orange (Roth,) who is badly injured in the getaway. Stationed at a hiding spot, the remaining thieves suspect that someone among them may be a police informer. And with volatile Blonde in their midst, the situation has nowhere to go but down.

As per usual with Tarantino, the dialogue is clever and quirky, rife with the idiosyncrasies and oddities of daily life. I didn't find the dialogue as funny this time round as "Pulp Fiction," which was ultimately a more engaging work. The acting here is very good, with Chris Penn as 'Nice-Guy' Eddie being a weak-point in an otherwise strong cast.

Tim Roth is a stand-out as reluctant newbie Orange, while Michael Madsen as Blonde makes a very convincing psycho. Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi give steady support as White and Pink, respectively. The violence is occasionally shocking, and provoked walk-outs during "Reservoir Dogs'" stint at the film festival circuit, but has become maybe less so with time.

Overall, "Reservoir Dogs" embodies what we have come to excpect from Tarantino- shocks, thrills, and graphic violence, like an invigorating roller-coaster ride, but with a little extra heart- we care about the relationship between White and Orange, and the following events saddens us. But most of all, it is spectacular Tarantino entertainment. Who could ask for anything more?

It's no secret that "let the Right One In" is my second favorite movie of all time, and was, in my opinion, in no need of a remake. The experience of watching this movie is akin to that of reading a great book- afterwards you want to recommend it to everyone, in hopes that they will feel the way you did watching it for the first time.

Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant,) an unhappy twelve-year-old boy, is bullied by his peers and fantasizes about making them pay, though for the time being the violence stays within the confines of his imagination. While outside his apartment complex at night he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson,) a strange twelve-year-old who offers him for the first time a chance to dream of a different life.

Eli is not like other girls. She goes outside into the bitter Swedish winter wearing no shoes. Occasionally she smells like a putrid corpse. Animalistic growls emanate from her gut. But she floors Oskar with her concern for him and her insistence that he must fight back- no matter what the cost.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, Eli is a vampire- which doesn't stand by itself as a big spoiler, as it is eluded to in the first twenty-or-so minutes. Eli is not twelve, but rather thousands of years old, and her intentions toward lovelorn, nerdy Oskar are ambiguous throughout.

This is a extraordinarily well-shot film- the snowy, coldly beautiful backdrop is the perfect setting to tell this story, and the cinematography is gorgeous without being showy or pretentious. It is the kind of story that makes you fall in love with it's characters. It doesn't matter if Eli is a vampire or a zombie or even a robot- she is an undeniably real presence, and you root for her as she carries out what must be done.

Lina Leandersson is surprisingly good and carries most of the acting duties on her small, vampiric shoulders. Kåre Hedebrant is a little underwhelming at times but still makes a decent effort, and is nevertheless acts much better than Daniel Buttcliffe is the early HP years. He pulls off the mix of darkness and pain in Oskar's heart combined with his ultimate naivete.

There's a lot of symbolism in the second half of the movie (Oskar closing the doors of his toy cars, anybody?) which you may not catch if you are overly literal-minded or are not paying attention. The film never lets us forget the suffering of Eli's victims, including Lacke, a local drunk she ensnares with a nasty trick and makes a snack out of.

The strength of "Let the Right One In" is that it cares as much about it's characters as it's blood and special effects. The small bit of controversy it earned with its content involving children is unfounded, and should not deter you from watching what is most certainly one of the all-time greats in modern horror.

For reasons I cannot fully explain, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and laughed throughout. Blame it on my crazy sense of humor. Blame it on my love of gratuitous film violence and insanity. But mostly, blame it on Tim Roth. Roth's manic, inspired portrayal of swishy, spasticated, neurotic bellhop 'Ted' resulted in one of the most entertaining characters I've seen in a while.

Here's the deal- "Four Rooms" is a pseudo-anthology film featuring four segments written and directed by four filmmakers. Each segment follows Ted (Roth) through one insane New Year spent at a hotel and punctuated by violence, weird sexuality, and mutilation. Three of the segments are directed by filmmakers I'm not really familiar with, and the fourth is done by Tarantino.

I liked all of the stories in the film, but in different ways. I didn't really know what to make of the first one. A coven of witches staying at the hotel, played by prominent '90s icons such as Madonna and Lili Taylor, discover they need sperm to complete their witchy potion to bring the goddess Diana to life. And who else for the job but twitchy hotel bellboy Roth?

The second story involves an insane husband and wife who want to Ted to participate in their kinky sex games. The third and the funniest, "The Misbehavers," follows Ted as he is bribed into caring for Antonio Banderes' two whiny children. The kids, who exemplify the reason I hate small children, soon push Ted over the edge with their demands. But how will Ted react when there's a real emergency on hand?

I actually thought Tarantino's short, "The Man From Hollywood," was the weakest, because it seemed self-indulgent, suffering from uninterrupted periods of Tarantino reading his dialogue. In this one, Ted comes across a Hollywood bigwig (Tarantino) with a shocking proposition.

I watched this movie free of the knowledge that had been critically panned, with an abysmal 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think you have to have a certain kind of sense of humor to appreciate this kind of movie. For me, it was very funny, because it wasn't the usual wishy-washy cliche type of comedy.

I derived the majority of the humor from Tim Roth's absurdly physical performance. It reminded me a little of Charlie Chaplin for the '90s, which was, obviously, a less innocent time for cinema than the Tramp's heyday. Overall, "Four Rooms" is an interesting and overlooked black comedy for those who like their comedy absurd and bizarre.

Sam Raimi avoids the camp of the "Evil Dead" trilogy to deliver some serious scares in "The Gift," a Southern-Gothic ESP thriller that stars Cate Blanchett in the role of Annie, a psychic living in a small town.

When local flake Jessica King (Katie Holmes) gets murdered, Annie's sixth sense acts up, leading the authorities to one man- resident wife-beater and town redneck Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves.) Of course, Donnie's not the one who done it, and with her power under scrutiny, Annie must find the real killer before she, too, becomes a victim.

The strength of this movie is that it avoids the pitfalls of modern horror films. First of all, Annie isn't the usual ditzy, flaky, slutty heroine, who along with her group of dumb friends has a total IQ of 50. She behaves in an admirable and most of all, INTELLIGENT way.

It's probably not too hard to figure out who the real killer is, but there's a fun if maybe typically 'Southern-Gothic' characters to follow, including town headcase Buddy (Giovonni Ribisi,) who is trying to dredge up old memories with the help of Annie that might hold the key to his fractured mind.

Donnie's beaten wife, Valerie Barksdale (Hilary Swank,) puts Annie and her three boys in danger when she keeps showing up despite volatile Donnie's threats. Meanwhile, the victim's haggard fiance Wayne (Greg Kinnear) tries to carry on the best way he can.

Secondly, the jump-scares are pretty well-thought-out, not childish and predictable like in a lot of horror films. Call me crazy, but of all the scares scattered throughout the film- the dripping blood, the waterlogged corpse, and the surprise attack by the real killer- the dream-sequence fiddler scares the f**k out of me.

Overall, "The Gift" is a fun thriller, which occasionally hints at something more meaningful. The whole cast (including Keanu Reeves) performs admirably, and are backed by a solid script (co-written by Billy Bob Thornton) and Sam Raimi's directing. It is unfairly dismissed by audiences and deserves more attention than it gets.

Unfairly bashed by critics as self-consciously quirky and 'hipster,' "Jesus Henry Christ" is a entertainingly quirky little film, featuring highly intelligent characters who must find their own way towards being happy.

Henry James Herman (Jason Spevack) is an enigma- a brilliant youngster raised by his single mother Patricia (Toni Collette.) Henry has a keenly incisive mind and a photographic memory, but there is one thing he doesn't know... who his dad, an anonymous sperm donor, is.

Enter dweeby professor Slavkin O'Hara (Michael Sheen,) whose latest mistake is putting his 12-year-old daughter Audrey (Samantha Weinstein)'s face on his new book, 'Made Gay or Born That Way?" Audrey, as it turns out, is gay, but she's not ready to be outed just yet, and Slavkin's bug-up provokes the merciless taunts of her peers.

Henry decides to locate his father, which leads to a series of sometimes sweet, sometimes sad, sometime revelatory occurrences, which in the long run brings Henry's makeshift family together.

But first Henry must contend with his skeptical mother and furious half-sister, while Henry's appearance dredges up old memories in Slavkin, who must come face-to-face with how fractured he and his daughter's relationship has become.

This film is not a masterpiece. I didn't like parts of it. For instance, the white character who thinks he's black and refers to the other characters as 'white Devils' was kind of silly. The scene where Henry is bullied for writing an atheistic paper in Catholic school was a little obvious (will there ever be a movie where the kid is bullied for being Catholic? Probably not.)

The movie I'd compare "Jesus Henry Christ" to is "Amelie." The dark/cutesy whimsy and off-beat narration tie the two films together, but Jason Spevack's Henry is simply not as likable as Audrey Tautou's Amelie Poulain.

I mean, Jason Spevack is fine, but the real discovery here is Samantha Weinstein as Audrey, Slavkin's defiant adolescent daughter. It's hard to make a character of a preteen who hates everything and everyone not seem like an entitled brat, but Samantha Weinstein makes you sympathize with Audrey.

There is also a scene where Henry and Audrey go on a carnival ride, and Audrey shrieks of freight become joyful screams, that I thought was beautifully done. "Jesus Henry Christ" is an unfairly bashed addition to the genre of offbeat indie movies.