I'll Sleep When He's Dead

Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.

I didn't expect a whole lot going into Gone. While I believe Amanda Seyfried is a competent actress, I'm hard pressed to think of a movie she's been in lately that could be considered "good." Add that to a trailer that made my eyes roll like a tire in the Indy 500 and you have a film that, before I even sat in the theater, I was already dreading. That said, I love to be surprised when I go to the theater and even if the film wasn't "great," as long as it had a decent story and/or acting, I'd be satisfied. Well it has neither. In fact I'd go so far to say that Gone has one of the most confounding, convoluted, piss-poor screenplays I have ever sat through and features bland, phoned-in acting across the board. If 30 minutes into a film I've almost cut my head open from facepalming repeatedly, your film is dead in the water and needs to be taken out back and shot.

Gone is the story Jill (Seyfried), a waitress at a local diner who lives with her sister. On the outside she seems fairly normal but she has had it rough recently. She was kidnapped, dragged out to the woods, thrown in a hole and right before she was going to get killed, she escaped and wandered through the woods back to safety. Problem is her kidnapper left no traces and so everybody deemed her insane and thought she made the whole thing up. It probably didn't help that she actually did go insane from the paranoia and obsession with the kidnapping shortly after she returned, but I digress. Jill is driven and spends all of her free time looking for the kidnapper, or at least the hole where she was held. After working a long shift at work one day, Jill returns home to find that her sister is missing. There is no sign of a break in, her clothes and everything are in order and on the outside it just looks like she caught a ride to her final that day. What does Jill do though? Goes to the police, claims the kidnapper took her and when they don't help she gets a gun and goes hunting for him.

That's sound logic right? I mean there are more developments that make her theory a little more sound but for someone who is twenty or so minutes into a movie, a mentally unstable woman with a gun hunting down a guy that may not exist for a sister that is probably not actually missing a good film does not make. What's worse is that everything is incredibly predicable and almost every scene plays right out of a fill-in-the-blanks book. I mean I'm fine with some predictability, but when you can telegraph a scene that goes on for a good ten minutes, it's bad and it comes off as padding. AND THIS FILM PADS. I swear they put one scene in towards the end because otherwise the film would only be an hour long. Even when it's a halfway decent scene or a scene that's harder to predict, it's boring, poorly acted and full of holes. Basically you can't win.

The acting ranges from poor to cardboard and you never really feel invested in any of the characters. Seyfried comes off as manic for most of the movie so it's hard to ever tell if she's really crazy or if she is just desperate to find her sister. They hint throughout it's the latter but it's hard to tell and therefore it comes off like a story told by the crazy cat lady down the street: she's doing her damnedest but you just don't care. Everyone else though is just laughably bad or pure bad. You wonder how some of these people even got work. When Jennifer Carpenter, who's only in the movie for two and a half scenes and doesn't really do much, is your best performance, you are in trouble. Even the villain, who I won't spoil (although the screenplay might as well have him wear a "I'm the bad guy" shirt) is boring and uninteresting.

Nothing in this movie clicks and it's frustratingly bad and downright incompetent. It's full of plot holes, poor logic, useless padding and terrible acting. Even if you love Seyfried, heck even if someone PAID you, don't watch this film. You'll thank me later.

MY VERDICT: ABOMINATION TO CINEMA

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.

I'm going to level with you: I have spent the past hour or so sitting in front of this computer trying to type out an intro paragraph for my review of Act of Valor. I've tried numerous stories about my family's history with the military or the delicacies of expressing an opinion on a topic that could possibly alienate your audience but nothing seemed to work. Eventually I put my fingers on the keyboard and I just froze. I couldn't find the right words to say. No matter what combination I used, I just couldn't create a suitable introduction. Then it hit me. You want to know the reason I'm struggling to find the right words to say?

Act of Valor is not a good movie.

It's not like I expected a lot. The jingoistic, near propaganda levels of overly enthusiastic patriotism that seem to bother a lot of critics was always going to be evident. Honestly though that doesn't bother me. I'm proud to be an American and I respect each and every member of the military that risk their lives so that we're safe. Whether or not you believe in war doesn't matter, they're still out there protecting your right to believe whatever you want to believe. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded of all the hard work that they do and that is one of the ways this film excels. That said, it fails in so many other ways it's really hard to recommend it.

The story follows a group of Navy SEALs who are trying to stop terrorists from blowing up America (or at least heavily populated areas of America) with a special kind of suicide bomb vest that can't be detected by normal metal detectors. While they are trying to stop that, they also must rescue a CIA agent who has been kidnapped by the ringleader of the aforementioned terrorists.

That's basically the plot in a nutshell. There are some intricacies to it, mostly between the two main SEALs that this film focuses on, but really it doesn't get much deeper than what I have already mentioned. For a reference, it's about as deep as a Call of Duty game. Sadly, for anyone who has played these games, they know that the stories in them are quite thin. There is enough substance to justify going into battle and doing what they do best, but don't expect any hard hitting, thought provoking writing in the down time between battles. If you don't care about that then this is the perfect movie for you, but for me I like a little more substance than just a means to an end. In fact I dozed off a few times during the quiet scenes. Never actually fell asleep, because that would be disrespectful to a movie, but I came close on a number of occasions.

The acting is surprisingly bad and it's actually not from the SEALs themselves. In fact, the SEALs do their damnedest and few of them did quite well with the material they were given, weak as it may be. It's the acting of Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez and Nestor Serrano, the three professional actors that are featured in this movie, that really drag this film down. Veadov and Serrano are not convincing villains at all and honestly feel like glorified henchmen. Neither man gives off the right energy and even when they are blowing up innocents or doing terrible things it seems really tame because of they're presence. One of the most "shocking" scenes in the movie features Serrano doing something terrible that in any other film would cause an audible gasp or at least a "I really want him to die" attitude in the viewer. I couldn't care less and that's tragic. Roselyn gives a slightly better performance but she isn't given a ton to do so it's really hard to gauge her.

Where this film shines, and honestly the only reason to see this movie if you MUST see this movie, is in the action. Tight, well shot, gripping and intense were words that came to my mind when I was watching these scenes. They can be quietly powerful and explosively hectic within the span of a few minutes. IF you must see this film, see it for the action because that ALMOST makes it worth the price of admission.

Overall Act of Valor is a poorly written, poorly acted film with great action. If action is all you want then by all means see it, but me I'd rather spend my money on something with a little more substance.

MY VERDICT: AVOID IT (1 Star)

You are very beautiful, very talented. But we are going to make you more beautiful, even more talented.

Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.

Sometimes I wonder why I choose to watch the films I do. Granted I could just read my catchphrase and that'd be a good enough answer but sometimes even that doesn't seem to be a good enough explanation. Sleeping Beauty is one of those movies that raises that question. It's not a bad movie by any means, in fact I think it's Emily Browning's best role to date, but why in the blue Hell would I want to watch a movie about old men fondling an unconscious ginger? Then again I doubt that short little synopsis would really appeal to many people unless you are one of those said old men. Sleeping Beauty is a weirdly fascinating and disturbing film about apathy, silence and human nature. Though I continued to sit further and further back as the film kept going (I think at one point I might have been behind the couch) I could never take my eyes off the film. The film is like watching a train crash during a Pink Floyd light show. I know I shouldn't be interested but I am.

Anyway I probably should move on and talk about the plot. Otherwise I'll continue to make increasingly worse comparisons until I've offended at least three people.

The film follows Lucy (Emily Browning), a college student/waitress/prostitute/science experiment trying to make ends meat. She's quiet, mostly keeps to herself and her only friend is a man named Birdman who is infatuated with her. She of course doesn't feel the same way (she rarely ever shows any emotion) but she feels an obligation to visit and take care of him since he's the only one who will treat her like a normal person. She takes a job offer in the newspaper (like she needs more jobs) to be a server for old rich guys. The catch is she'd be in lingerie and would more than likely be humiliated. But she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything. Eventually she gets a promotion and becomes a "sleeping beauty," which is a woman who is drugged and put to sleep for 6-8 hours. During that time a male (or female but only men are ever shown) companion will come in and do whatever he wants to her, as long as there is no sex.

Sounds like a wonderfully charming film doesn't it? Yeah, didn't think so. But to Julia Leigh's credit she does craft an interesting story and does a lot without saying a lot. The theme of the film, apathy and silence, is apparent from the opening minutes and it never tries to be anything more than that. If you aren't hooked by the fifteen minute mark, you probably never will be. But silence can be deafeningly engrossing to some and this film has it in spades. The plot does jump around a lot and leaves a lot of ambiguity/plot holes but overall it's unique and I appreciate unique.

Browning is brilliant as Lucy. She's an actress who can do subtle well and this role is basically the closest to pure subtlety we'll be likely to see for a number of years. She's almost non-existent but she commands the screen every time she's on it. That's hard, especially when there is almost nothing going on during the movie, action or score wise. She has to make you feel and react to everything without the film directing you to do so. That's tough. And she deserves credit where credit is due. Otherwise the acting is unremarkable. It's not bad but it's just there. Not bad, not good.

Sleeping Beauty is a film that nobody will probably want to see and even if they do they won't want to finish it. Even if they do they'll probably hate it. That's fine and I totally understand. But for me Sleeping Beauty is a compelling, original film led by a wonderful performance by Browning. But that's just me.

MY VERDICT: SEE IT (3 out of 5)