I LOVE SURPRISES



The Factory (2013)

Netflix appears to be having some fun for April Fools Day this year. If you looked at the choices you might have found topics like, 'Nephrotic Adventures Featuring Very Tiny Children', 'Reality TV About People With No Concept Of Reality', 'Movies That Are In English But Still Require Subtitles', and 'Movies Featuring An Epic Nicolas Cage Meltdown'. Bravo Netflix, now quit doing my job for me!

Still unable to face the movies I'm supposed to be reviewing (hey I said I review movies, I didn't say I was consistent) I picked out of nowhere this movie simply because it had John Cusack in it - another actor on my list of people I will watch in anything. You have to make sure you have the right one so make sure it's the one he's in - apparently there's several with this title all made within a year or two of each other.

And hey, this would have been a good one just 'cause of Cusack but so much duh was crammed into it, you might watch it for the twist, but not 'cause it's a smart flick. And I realized I practically wrote the whole damned movie down so this review actually has been shortened from its original form.

I kind of wish John could write some of his own scripts because although he does an excellent job, he seldom has stellar material. This had the death knell at the beginning 'inspired by actual events'. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!  Ahem, sorry about that. Once I got into the movie and saw what it was basically about I remembered the incident it was kind of copying (I've got several hundred true crime paperbacks - no exaggeration).

When I read the book I remember that the cases was unusual and sick enough to, well, write a book about it. Now new cases are all over the news and not just done by psychos to total strangers - it's happening within families! My twisted and horrid childhood is getting paler and paler by comparison to these loonies and what they do to their kids... I'll explain in a bit.

We start with the basic every-detective-story-in-the-world scenario: Mike Fletcher (John Cusack) is a detective that works long hours, neglecting his family in the process, as he tries to work a case of a serial killer (a man who's a dead ringer, pardon the expression, of the late, great John Ritter) who takes prostitutes. He's been working on it about non-stop on the mean streets of New York for years. Apparently, the killer mainly works during the winter so... yeah, this is your typical isn't-New-York-a-lousy-place-to-live kind of movie, mostly a slap in the face for the quarter million people who live, probably mostly contentedly, in Buffalo.

Anywho, he has a partner who's been helping every step of the way, in fact she specifically wanted to work this case with him, her name is Kelsey. She's also a close friend of the family and enjoys being with his kids, one reason is she can't have any of her own.

Do we see an obvious story forming boys and girls? 'Cause if you don't, you need to go back to horror story 101 and get a refresher course on the DUUUUUH of obvious set ups and plodding story lines that lead to obvious endings.

Ahem. Anyway our detective team learns their case is being shut down because the killer has 'gone to ground' which is a term meaning he's stopped killing and is probably either hiding or has moved on to a different state or country. Suddenly they hear of an abduction that can only be one of his - after three years he's started again. Phew, I thought this movie was going to be really short. Duh. Nope, you're gonna be subject to this crime for 104 minutes so settle back.

Mike (Cusack) has a teenage daughter Abby who, like most teenagers, hates her parents, hates her life, hates her school, hates her responsibilities, but loves an older boy who's just looking for jollies with a high school girl. She has something very serious to tell him but he stops her and basically says it's been swell but the swelling's gone down and dumps her. She's so upset she runs out of the cafe' he works in without her coat or phone. He sees it, goes to the window and she's talking to someone in a car. The next time he looks before going out, she's gone. Any guess as to who took her and why? Well, let's see - she's dressed in hardly anything (she left her coat behind) and she's willing to get in a stranger's car.... that's a head scratcher.

She disappears. Any real questions as to who took her and why? No? Good for you. The serial 'killer' isn't killing the girls - he's keeping them in his basement in little cubicles, grooming them to become mothers of his children. Ick. So Abby, Mike's daughter is movie stupid and so the first words out of her mouth is that her dad is a cop. Oh, that's going to scare him. Not. Now that Mike is aware that Abby has been taken by the same sicko he's been pursuing he kind of loses it.

Meanwhile Abby has been beaten, chained and told by the other girls her fate - she's going to bear this psycho's child. Mike is frantically putting together the pieces, knowing there must be something right in front of his face that he's missing and knowing if he doesn't hurry, he'll never see his daughter again.

Finally putting the pieces together he and his partner Kelsey rush to the psycho's house. Mike finds him first and... from this point the movie does this stupid cut-away-from-the-scene-so-you-don't-know-what-happened which they repeat annoying several times for the rest of the movie.


After finding a room with several babies in incubators, Mike shoots Gary (the psycho) who all the girls had called 'daddy'. Kelsey comes to the scene. Mike tells her Gary's gonna die - she turns and shoots Mike. Wait, what? Ohhhh, of course, the twist. See, Kelsey can't have kids - and she had been the very first girl Gary had picked up. When she couldn't have kids, she became a cop so she could help him find others to abduct. 

Kelsey, losing her 'daddy' is ready to kill Mike until Mike tells her Abby is pregnant, hoping to keep her occupied until he reaches the gun at his ankle. We get another annoying cutaway, then a flash of a gunshot. Uh, fellas? Nobody outside the house (or inside for that matter) is going to see a bright 'flash' from a gun, okay? D-U-H.

After the inevitable massive emergency vehicle scene where everybody's taken out of the house (and the magic blankets are put on the survivors) we find out that Kelsey is a faster shot and Mike is dead. Ahhh.

Hmmm? What are magic blankets? Oh sorry, it's just that with every horror movie (and other genres too) whenever an ambulance shows up, what is their first line of treatment with every patient no matter what the circumstances? Check it out for yourself... bet you a quarter it's gonna be a blanket.

Okay the movie was obvious, a lot of duh moments and what-the-hell twists that made it irritating. But such things do happen, the movie was well acted if not planned out well, and John Cusack could make the cruddy The Asylum movie company look good if he had to.



                         

MOVIES THAT DON'T SUCK... NO, REALLY!

The Raven (2012)

This was one movie I actually wanted to see when it came out but being housebound kind of puts a damper on those kinds of activities. If I go, it's got to be for something the hubby really wants to see too, cause it's really hard for me and not worth it unless he can enjoy it. I love John Cusack in anything he acts in, and of course I'm also a fan of Edgar Allen Poe... that being said I was skeptical about this movie since knowing Poe's history I found it highly unlikely that he would have the strength or the cunning to act like a detective in this mystery/thriller.

I found this to be very enjoyable however and worth a look so if you haven't seen it and want to, you might want to skip this review. This movie explores the 'real' reason Poe was found delirious on a park bench and died a few days later in a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In real life this was unfortunately his true end - although the cause of death has been debated since they really didn't have ways of detecting these things back in 1849. 

So this movie tries to give Poe a heroic end to his rather sad life at the age of 40. Like most geniuses in the past Poe was not recognized for his wonderful works until long after his death. In fact his most famous poem that this movie is named after sold for only $9 ($272.73 in today's dollars) and that's pretty much why he was always broke and in debt.

In this movie, horrific murders are discovered and it is determined that someone is copying Poe's stories in these gruesome deaths. He's asked if death occurs a lot in his works and he had to admit that it does. The inspector whose name is Fields then decides to ask Poe to assist them since he knows about every action the killer may take, especially after the woman Poe loves, Emily, has been kidnapped and the killer has been leaving notes insinuating that if Poe doesn't write about his exploits he will kill her.

The cloak and dagger moves along with the almost Sherlock-like actions and deductions made by both Poe and the inspector seem pretty far fetched and the movie slows down quite a bit but it is still a neat piece of acting and special effects, and I was kind of wondering if Cusack could pull off playing the morose and always drunk Poe, but he did it beautifully and that helps us through the endless clues and running around the two do to save the beautiful Emily (that part is fictional, he never pursued anyone named Emily).

The killer turns out to be Ivan, a typesetter working for the newspaper that publishes Poe's works. Ivan reveals to him that he will free Emily if Poe writes a sort of final story and takes poison. He does and Ivan leaves, but not before telling Poe he plans to kill an author by the name of Jules Verne in France. He leaves without revealing Emily's hiding place and Poe must use the last of his strength to figure it's a part of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and gets her out just in time. He then wanders to the park and waits on the bench for the poison to finish its work. This is the movie's way of trying to explain why Poe in real life was found incoherent on a park bench and died in the hospital a few days later.

The movie ends as the inspector looks at Poe lying dead in the hospital and the doctor tells him that he kept repeating 'tell Fields his name is Reynolds' (the name Ivan told him he would be using in France). In real life it is fact that in the hospital Poe kept repeating the name 'Reynolds' up until he died.

The last scene is in France as Ivan gets into his carriage. He is met by Fields, who is carrying a pistol.

This movie moved a little slower than I would have liked, however it was well made and certainly worth a look.




                              

AND NOW... A SMART MOVIE BREAK






Identity (2003)

I've said before that I love just about everything with John Cusack in it. He just can't seem to make a bad movie. Either that or he's just very careful with his choices of projects. 1408, for one of those 'Oooh the room is haunted!' stories was excellent and this is no different. It's smart, complex, scary and most of all, an original idea well executed. In other words, not a movie I usually pick apart.



And I'm not picking this apart either. Actually if I tried, there would be little to mess with because the cinematography, acting and story progression were just wonderful. Our story begins with a dark and stormy night. And rainy. It rains continually in this film which just seems to add to the creepiness of it. There are excellent performances from Amanda Peet, Ray Liotta and of course anything Jake Busey does is just plain fun to watch. If you haven't seen this film, I definitely recommend giving it a peek.



Through a series of intertwining circumstances all these people are stuck for the night in a run down motel due to the rain washing out the road on both sides. All are given a room with a number. It's those numbers that doom the temporary residents of this fleabag motel. If this sounds a bit like Agatha Christie, it's supposed to - it was inspired by And Then There Were None - a fact that is mentioned by one of the characters during the movie.



Meanwhile a convicted murderer, hours away from execution is given a last minute conference with the judge and court officials due to documents that were misfiled (typical). His name is Malcolm Rivers, a bald, cross eyed individual who viciously killed people in a motel. The argument brought forth by his psychiatrist is that he is completely unaware of what he did because the murders were actually done by one of his personalities. They hope to make those personalities confront each other and hopefully Malcolm will then be able to sort out who he really is. I don't know if I personally believe completely in the dissociative identity disorder idea or not, but for the movie it works well.



Back to the motel: We have a mess of a mystery, with bodies appearing and disappearing, and all those present are not completely who they seem. Each has a secret of their own that is eventually revealed throughout the movie. I don't want to give everything away but if you haven't guessed by now, the whole motel mess is actually all the personalities in Malcom's mind fighting each other and the outcome - well the outcome causes the judge to stay the execution and instead send Malcom to a psychiatric facility.



But on the way to the facility... ah, there's a twist I could get into since they left a bit of a hole in the plot which gets nicely filled in at this point. Like I said, give it a look - after watching dumb kids get wasted (both figuratively and literally) it's nice to watch something that requires a brain to follow.

Yesterday upon the stair 

I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away