The Sacrement (2013)

Toilet Review: All the cults!

If you’ve ever watched a documentary about Jonestown, or Jim Jones, or even about cults in general, then you know how this movie is going to play out. Believe me that isn’t a spoiler. The moment we hear that the main character’s sister has moved with a bunch of religious people to the middle of nowhere in Central America, and its all over.I could have turned the movie off there.

But I gave it a chance. I wanted to be surprised. I wanted the movie to do something different, something that I wasn’t expecting. The movie was on a lot of “Best of 2014” Horror lists, so I really wanted it to be good. As soon as it came on, and I realised it was a found footage movie, my hope dimishied somewhat. I haven’t seen a good found footage movie since REC and I was hoping that this might be differnet.

Alas.

The plot focuses on Patrick, the brother of the aforementioned sister, who works at VICE, which you may be familiar with. They do documentaries on the internet and generally do some intereesting things. Two of the other guys tag along and soon things go awry.

What a surprise!

Who could have predicated that?

And in case you’re wondering, no. They don’t do anything interesting. There is nothing new or interesting or even remotely likeable about this movie.

Don’t waste your time.

On The Waterfront (1954)

Toilet Review: Can you say “classic”? Can you say “hellllo Marlon Brando”?

This movie is one of those movies that I initially watched in secondary school. My English teacher for my Leaving Cert was a brilliant man called Mr. Nolan. He loved teaching and he loved movies like no one I’ve ever met since. To him, English wasn’t just about long dead poets and books about war but about the art of the film. How people showed a story and how it was told through this medium was crucial to him, and my classmates and I were possibly the only English class in the entire country to have a standing movie day on Fridays. Mr. Nolan showed us all types of movies, some boring, some not. Some scandalous, some not. Some new and some not. This is one of the first movies I ever remember him showing us. I remember how he would, when the movie ended, sit and talk with us about what we saw, and it was always an interesting conversation.

This movie is one of those movies in Hollywood that seems to hold some sort of golden status, some untouchable right that other movies do not seem to get. Whether it’s the story of one man getting caught up in sordid deeds much bigger than him, or whether it’s Marlon Brando’s stellar performance as Terry Malloy, it’s hard to define what makes this movie such a riveting watch. I figure a movie has reached this status when people know the lines or a famous scene without ever having seen this movie.

When Terry is sitting in the car, distraught, and he scratches out that he “could have been a contender, could have been somebody”, it’s a scene unlike any other. It gave me goosebumps the first time I watched it, and it gave me goosebumps every time I’ve seen it since then. Most people tend to think of Marlon Brando as the Godfather, a tough gruff guy that is a little portly, and possibly beyond his final days in acting. When I think of him, I think of him in this, or in “A Streetcar named Desire”, a young man who’s entire career is ahead of him.

I realise that I haven’t talked too much about the plot of this movie, and I’m not going to. If you haven’t seem it, you should check it out. Especially if you dig the Golden Age of Hollywood as much as I do.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

Toilet Review: Psychological alien abductions? Milla Jovovich? Spooky town in Alaska? Sign me up! Or… maybe not…

I love me some “based on true story” type of movies. It gives the whole thing a sense of realism, and when it’s paired with horror or thriller type movies, it gets me even more into the movie watching experience. When I first told my husband I was going to watch this movie, he laughed and scoffed, saying it was pretty awful and god-damn hokey to boot. I shushed him and told him that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as he was making it out to be.

And we were both right.

The movie itself takes place in town called Nome in Alaska. It’s a pretty small place, with roughly about 4000 people. In the real world, Nome has a statistically above average number of missing persons reports and this is what the movie seizes on. Milla Jovovich plays a small town psychiatrist who’s husband was murdered in their bed whilst they slept. She focuses on her husband’s research into the sleep deprived residents of this town, all reporting lack of sleep and the presence of a white owl. Turns out not is all as it seems, and soon the FBI, aliens, ancient translations and a missing child all turn and twist this movie to it’s uninspired conclusion.

I tried to get on board with this movie. I tried to revel in the real audio snippets and real pictures, along with the police reports and news footage. I just couldn’t. I don’t know if its that the whole thing is just not as scary as it’s trying to be or that I can’t seem to warm to the lead actress. I think that Jovovich, whilst pretty good as supporting actress, just doesn’t seem to have the acting chops, or magnetism to drive forward a story like this.

Ultimately disappointing. Plenty of other good alien/true story movies out there to watch instead of this.

Mardaani (2014)

Toilet Review: Possibly the most bad ass female cop that I have ever seen!

I loved this movie.

Normally, I don’t quite get that sort of visceral reaction whilst watching a movie, but I adored this one. Everything about it just screamed bad ass. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. What a movie.

It’s ostensibly a straight forward movie. A little girl gets kidnapped by human traffickers and our bad ass heroine, Shivani Shivaji Roy, is on a mission to get her back. Through all sorts of obstacles, including her husband being targeted, and fearing for the safety of her niece, Shivani just keeps trekking. One of the best scenes of the movie is when the head trafficker calls her as she is preparing dinner, and one might think this would be intimating, but Shivani not only makes fun of him, but also keeps her cool to the point that it is unnerving.

Considering the movie deals with such heavy topics as human trafficking, and being a woman/girl in India, and the inherent inequality that comes with that. The lead actress, Rani Mukerji, does a fantastic job of showing us how fine the line her character walks, and how she can deal with the society around her.

This is seriously one of the best female led movies I have ever seen. It’s not soppy, or lovey dovey. This is one bad ass cop taking down bad guys in all the right ways. The climax is just about as satisfying as you could imagine. Please check this out, and if other Bollywood movies can show me something along these lines, I will most definitely be checking them out.

Robogeisha (2009)

Toilet Review: This movie has everything! Geishas, assassinations, awesome weapons, and even mechs! It’s a hodge podge of pretty much every genre ever.

This is one of those movies that I find hard to believe actually exists. There is just SO much happening in it, without anything actually happening, if that makes sense? The story is pretty much paper thin and lumbers about the place like a hippo on roller skates. It tries to evoke sympathy in the viewer by showing how hard the main character, Yoshie, being treated badly by her older geisha sister. But honestly, there is just so much happening. There is such a hodge podge of gore and sex, violence and gratuitous fan service, that it is hard to watch in places.

I have to say though, i really enjoyed this movie, as a “Bad” movie. It definitely has little to no redeeming features, beyond the exceptional imaginative places where weapons can be hidden. It’s the sort of movie I would suggest for a bad movie night, especially for people who have never seen it, or anything like this. It’s not a particularly fine example of this sort of niche movie but as good an introduction to that bat shit insane place that Japanese movies so often inhabit.

This is where I would normally expound on the plot a little, but the tiny amount of plot that exists in this movie could easily be spoiled by me, and I don’t want to do that. Go into this blind. Watch it, and be amazed by the insanity of it all. Then watch it again, and wonder why the hell I made you watch it in the first place.