Men Who Stare at Goats Review

Hello and welcome to Kersplackle's Lair of Stuff, where I review whatever comes to my mind. In a world full of remakes and parodies it is nice to see some movies trying to have some originality. Could I possibly be talking about Men Who Stare at Goats, let us find out as we dig into a world full of drugs, hippies, physics, and lots of drugs.
The plot revolves around journalist Bob Wilton [Ewan McGregor] and how his life has no meaning. So he wanders to Iraq to prove his masculinity after his wife leaves him for a one armed editor who worked at his former job. By chance Bob meets Lyn Cassidy [George Clooney] who was a former member of the US army's secret division known as PsyiOps. What are these PsyiOps, nothing less but a group of physic soldiers that the American army tried to create to compete with the USSR's physic research during the Cold War (true story). This is where the film is split in two acts, one telling flashbacks of Lyn and his lieutenant Bill Django [Jeff Bridges] who lead this army of physic soldiers. So thus the tale begins of how Bill Django tries spreading his hippy ideals to the army and creating psychic soldiers to defend not kill. The other tale is of Bob and Lyn traveling in Iraq to fulfill Lyn's mission which he had in a vision.
Let’s start of by saying it’s easy to like this movie, and chances are you will like this movie. However you will feel confused and wonder why you can't recommend this film. You grow tired of Lyn and how much overacting Clooney does in this performance. It almost seems as if Clooney never read up on the real Lyn and just assumed he was a lunatic with a good heart. When they introduce Hoop [Kevin Spacey] as Lyn’s rival the film gets going and you really start to get caught up into the small little world at the army base, then they smack you with a flash forward to Bob and Lyn in Iraq. The biggest weakness of this film has to be the scenes of Iraq that are full of physical humor and pointless banter from Bob Wilton. But god damn, Bob Wilton, for nearly a good thirty percent of the film he does nothing but monologue internally about what is going on or to say a valuable life lesson that he learned. Bob honestly pissed me off as a character, a guy who wife cheated on him and left him, yet he is still trying to win her heart back by going to Iraq. When he finally develops he learns the cruel truth of media and how they don’t care to report torture done by US soldiers, unless in a comical sense (in the film the news station only reported that Iraqi soldiers were tortured by being forced to listen to Barney as a joke with no intent on making this issue serious) he accepts it and moves on in life almost as if nothing had ever occurred. It’s like this film doesn’t know if it’s a joke or serious?!
Behind the film's silliness lies a very serious issue with psychological torture and drug abuse from former American soldiers. For some reason this film chooses to ignore it and make the film a full fledged comedy even adding one of the oddest endings I’ve seen in movies for a while. Not to say that the movie ending was bad, but it just made you wonder if the directors of the film believed in psychic soldiers or just thought the idea was something to ridicule. With all that being said I really do like Jeff Bridges performance as the hippy officer in the army. Bill Django is a peaceful “Jedi” who is trying to spread the “good” side of psychic capabilities. Every flashback is full of laughs and George Clooney wearing a ridiculous wig that still has me chuckling thinking about it. The flashbacks are full of good will and thought that you wish the movie was just the flashbacks alone, Bill Django is the real star of this film and I could care less about Bob and Lyn.
The tough question is would I recommend this film, and I can't honestly call it a must see, or to completely avoid it. The film yells average with no reason to watch it unless you desire to see a film with any of these actors or are interested in the subject of psychic soldiers. With what seemed like a film that could have been a drama with some comedy and really put a light on the still existing issues of drug abuse from former military men and torture in any type of form, the film thought it was too touchy of a matter and just said let’s make some people laugh, and that they did at times. If you ever catch this on HBO or some other cable channel give it a shot, but don’t spend any money on the film, it’s just not deserving of it.

Rec. Review

Hello and welcome to Kersplackle's Lair of Stuff, where I review whatever comes to my mind. As you may have guessed it, Kersplackle is going international and reviewing REC. the little Spanish horror film that used the first person camera perspective. Will this film be another hit like the Blair Witch Project or will it be a disaster like The Zombie Diaries? Enough questioning and allow us to dive into the subtitled world of REC.
The plot revolves around a local Spanish female reporter, Ángela, and her cameraman Pablo; whose perspective is what we see throughout the movie, doing a special on the midnight shift of the fire department. Feeling somewhat slow for the first twenty minutes, this intro really gets us to understand the characters and understand their personality. Eventually after all the introduction of each fireman and why they choose to work the night shift a call arrives about an elderly woman who has shut herself in her apartment. When they arrive it appears that the old woman is sick and acting rather peculiar, when the people least expect it, the old lady pounces on a police officer and bites him on the neck. And that the plot of REC. it’s a simple little zombie film made for the sheer entertainment purposes and possibly a small political statement.
With that being said this film has some plot holes that are the size of Jupiter. For example in one scene a mother tries explaining that her daughter has tonsillitis and that is why she has been pale for a couple of days. Eventually in the film the little girl turns into one of infected creatures in the film and tries biting someone. Earlier in the film the old lady bit a cop and in literally minutes he turned into one of the infected. Is there an explanation for this, how does a child have more immunity to the virus than a cop? But the plot holes don’t end there, in another scene some men in hazmat suits arrive to the now locked down apartment building and inject one of the infected with what is assumed to be a cure. Of course the cure fails as the infected person proceeds to bite and mutilate one of the hazmat guys. After they lock the now dead hazmat guy with the infected in the same room, the living hazmat guy gives Ángela a syringe with the same content that was used on the infected in the other room. Why did they give Ángela the syringe after observing the cure failed? Valid questions that were never answered in this film.
But even with all those questions do they really take away from the experience of the film? No...Not really...I guess not...Well it was entertaining and there were moments where you were genuinely scared. With no original sound track the film relies heavily on panting, yelling, and shaky camera work. You would think the act would get old but with the movie ticking at rough seventy five minutes, there just isn't simply enough time for the trick to get old. The jump scares preformed in the film do their job and aren't excessive thanks again to the length of the film. A great moment in the film is when the entire news crew is looking away from a staircase discussing what they should do with the old lady and why is the government locking down the building, you see the officer who was left alone with the old lady fall down the flight of stairs and land face down onto the floor. Sure it was a cheap scare but after that moment you knew that the people were screwed because a seventy something year old lady just threw down a three hundred pound cop. You must be wondering, Kersplackle you naïve young man, 75 minutes is insanely short and seems like a cheap move by the director to avoid having to use other methods to scare the audience! And to that I say, you are correct, the movie is lazy but entertaining. With seventy five minutes you don’t have much time to create a likeable cast of characters and images that get engraved in your mind, but this film manages to do that which is what you expect out of a horror film.
So what do I think of the movie overall? Well the film currently available to watch for free on YouTube, so if you have seventy five minutes to spare and internet access give the movie a shot. If you have to rent it to watch it unless you are a fan of the first person shaky camera movies then there really isn't enough substance in this film for you to pay hard earned money to watch it. Actually I’ll say if you’re a fan of horror films you should watch it. And for the subtitle thing, stop being lazy, we all know everything including films, books, and poems are better in their original language, so just read the subtitles.

Happy Hallo...I'm late...

Well fresh off of Halloween and a movie marathon later I'm eager to present my next review coming soon. Had to be imported since I couldn't find any copies at my local movie shop. The film I am referring to is REC., the original 2007 film created in Spain, which was the inspiration of the American film Quarantine. I hope to post the review soon and I promise to be less wordy. Thank you all for waiting :3.
-Kersplackle

Silent Hill the movie

Hello and welcome to Kersplackle’s Lair of Stuff, where I review whatever stuff I find appealing. You have to believe me when I say this is about the millionth time I've tried reviewing this film. I usually found myself typing away describing something very dear to me that I hold close to my heart. Of course I’m referring the cult playstation classic known as Silent Hill. Allow me to briefly describe the game right now so I could try, and by all means of the word try, to not mention this game during my review of the film. The purpose of this description is for those who did not play the game can compare the game to the film and come up with their own ideas, that of course which I do not want to have any major influence on...I swear I don't...(wink wink).

Silent Hill is a survival horror game released in January of 1999 by a company called Konami. Their little game’s soul existence was to capitalize off the massively successful buzz horror games were having thanks to Capcom’s Resident evil franchise. Unlike Resident Evil, Silent Hill had a focus on scaring the player without the use of hide and seek tactics (pop out of corners, sudden changes in music etc), this game used atmosphere and loneliness as its core of fear. Silent Hill was a story about a man named Harry and his adopted daughter Cheryl who go to vacation in a town called Silent Hill (not very clever but deal with it), While driving to the town, Harry sees the shape of a young girl walking across the road. Harry swerves his car to avoid hitting her, but he is knocked unconscious (I swear children walking in the streets are such a problem now a days). Without revealing too many details for those who actually wish to play the game (I can have false hope cant I) Harry is hell-bent on finding his daughter. After awaking to see his daughter wasn't in the car with him, and wanders into the town of Silent Hill. He is mostly alone or with the strong female lead known as Cybil, (tough girl cop) throughout the whole game and the people you meet are just as confused and lost as you. Many of the creatures you encounter in Silent Hill represent emotions or feelings that characters posses and try to hide, but Silent Hill vividly evokes them. For example, in the abandoned elementary school you encounter these creatures called mumblers who look like deformed children wielding knifes, these kids were allegedly what a certain female character viewed of her classmates after being ridiculed by them so much. With a game heavily focused on atmosphere and the eternal battle between you and nothing, the player constantly questioned what his role in the game was and what happened in Silent Hill. Some of these questions were answered while others are still widely debated to this day. Now that I got that over review time to review Silent Hill…the movie. (creepy sounds are playing in your head now!)

Trying to cash in on the recent thread of video games turned into movies (which has yet to have seen a good, hell decent film) Silent Hill was created...the movie. Thanks to usually a lack of interest or plain not knowing the source material these films bomb to fans and critics, yet ignorant (not in a bad way) people thinking they are going to see a decent film are conned of their ten dollars. Will Silent Hill be any different? Will it actually be decent? Will the writers even know the characters in the game? Let us find out as we dive into magnificently morbid world of Silent Hill.

From the opening scene you are confused and wondering why. In normal movie, as the film progresses you ultimately learn to understand why such things occur. Silent Hill says “Fuck that! We are making a beautiful movie, without that thing you people want to call a coherent plot, that minor idea of character development, GONE!” As this movie progresses there are two worlds apparently. One with Rose Dasilva and her adopted daughter Sharon who have a car accident, are separated and Rose ends up in Silent Hill trying to get her daughter back. The scenes with Christopher Dasilva, Rose’s husband, are entirely pointless, they are there to reinforce the fact that Rose and Chris are both in Silent Hill but Rose is stuck in the fucked up realm with creatures that want to kill you in many ways. The film is hard to follow because you don’t really understand what is going on half the time, Trying to explain the film is a puzzle all on its own, I hate to say it but it reminded me of Pokémon the first movie, how you needed to have background information to truly understand why the fuck two turtles and a dragon are duking it out for some weird floating retard with pink physic blasts. There is a scene where the world is rusting and walls are breaking down completely changing the scenery to a much more grim world (cause the world wasn't grim enough), as a fan of the game I know that was the transition to the otherworld, but a fellow movie goer would simply say “What the fuck was the point of that!”. Excellent use of CGI but an entirely unexplained moment in the movie that will always remain a question to the movie viewer.

With that being said this film is bad, but it does have some good quality features. The strongest thing this film has going for it is CGI. They went all out with the budget and you can see whether its pyramid head (who makes a pointless cameo because I’m sure he doesn’t represent the sexual frustration of any character in the movie as he did in Silent Hill 2 the game) ripping the skin off a living human’s body or watching the nurses (with stupidly large breasts without reason again) doing their always disturbing walk in a corridor. Overall this film was pretty medicore but I'm looking forward to the sequel after all it’s been announced as a trilogy. Hopefully we’ll see the good side of Roger Avary (Good Luck and Good Night/Resident Evil Extinction…I don’t know how fucking drastic the difference in films you make can be but hey Monkeybone was made by the same guy who did James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline) and prepare ourselves for a well written, pretty as hell, ATOMSPHEREIC, I REPEAT ATOMSPHEREIC, recreation of one of my favorite games of all time. I’m not a fan of numerical scores so I’ll just say this movie is pretty and if you’re a sucker for visuals it’s worth seeing otherwise just let it pass by and hope Silent Hill 2 will improve in every aspect. This has been a review with Kersplackle, and you insert some catchphrase for me here.

Welcome!

Welcome and behold my first ever attempt at a blog! I review movies, video games, comics, or any other stuff I find appealing. My name is Bryan M. Vieira and I'm currently a student at Rutgers, and thats enough info for now. Well without further delay my first review! Silent hill the movie... the review