“Jennifer Lawrence just gave the best performance I’ve seen since Heath Ledger as The Joker…”

Those were the first words out of my mouth as I exited the theatre, amazed at what I had just seen. Truly, even if you have little interest in the movie itself, if you are a fan of the art form, you must see this for her performance alone. If she doesn’t win the Oscar for this role the Academy will have embarrassed themselves. The scene before Katniss enters the tube sent chills down my spine and solidified Jennifer among the acting elite. But the good news is, beyond her masterful performance, this was one of the best films I’ve seen in the past few years. No hyperbole, this movie was far better than anything that you saw released in all of 2011.

The film stays as close to the novel as possible despite having to condense certain things in order to contain all that content within the confines of a films timeframe. You have to take your hat off to the writers and the director for being able to condense things together while remaining true to the source material and, at the same time, creating something that those few filmgoers unfamiliar with the source material could easily follow.

Only a few things get lost in translation. For instance, those who have not read The Hunger Games may be a bit confused by the whole opening segment with the cat, being unaware of Buttercups back-story. The importance of the mockingjay and the mockingjay pin are also lost in the film translation, which is all right for those of us in the know, but may be problematic for the uninitiated later down the line. The level of abject poverty and the significance of Peeta tossing Katniss the burnt bread is also a bit fuzzy in the film, but again, is given enough screen time to satisfy die hard fans.

One of the best features of the film for those of who have read the novel, is the expansion of the universe, the peak behind the curtain. In the book we know the Gamemakers are pulling the strings and setting up traps, like the fireballs, but here we see into the control room. We get a peak at the machine in action, as well as the personalities of those in charge. This aspect of the film not only makes the movie more compelling but it also enriches the universe for avid readers of the series.

The style in which they shot the action sequences is also something to be applauded. Often in PG films we get ridiculous looking fighting, where knifes and swords pierce flesh yet leave no cuts and draw no blood. Fighting that completely takes you out of the film and shatters your suspension of disbelief. Here the brutality of The Huger Games and the vicious hand to hand killings are captured via close up shaky-cam shots, with the gruesome violence happening slightly off screen with blood splattering into frame to convey the horrifying slaughter. This gives the viewer the same emotional retention a vicious kill in an R rated film would wield, while keeping the deaths tame enough to keep the film PG-13. Which is a pretty big achievement to say the least.

The visuals of the film were also impressive. The Capital looks as rich and lavish as you imagined it would and the people appear just as strange. Effie Trinket for one was the stuff of nightmares. Beyond that everything else was pitch perfect. From the training sequence, to the girl on fire scene, to the friendship with Rue, everything was spot on. Fans will not be disappointed.

Bottom-line, this film is incredibly. If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to ASAP. As a matter of fact you should do what I did. Go watch the movie, read back through the book, then go see the movie a second time. It is that damn good. I for one, can’t wait for the sequels.

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As if it wasn’t bad enough, AT&T activation even applies to the suits.

I see some people complaining that Whiplash wanst a prominant enough figure in this film, to the point where they lost track of who the villain even was. To them I say they missed the point. Whiplash was a villan, but not the main villain. The main villain and foe Iron Man had to battle in this film was Tony Stark. Tony’s alcoholism and womanizing behavior we’re a main focus because the viewers needed to see that while Iron Man is a demi-god, Tony Stark is nothing more than a flawed egomaniac with a death wish. Nothing he does is truly altruistic. His actions are to impress and further fuel his massive ego. His ego is killing Iron Man literally. His womanizing is the chink in his armor that allows Black Widow to get close to him and hand deliver him to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as ‘Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch’ in Iron Man 2

Whiplash isn’t that important to the film because he isn’t very important in the eyes of Stark. He is Iron Man everything else is beneath him, not a real threat. Hammer on the other hand is a real threat. Not to Stark’s safety but to his ego and star power. Hammer wants to steal his lime light. Hammer wants to be Tony Stark and will do whatever it takes to snatch the fame from Stark. In a sense they are extremely similar characters, the only thing separating the two is Tony’s ties to reality, mainly Pepper. Hammer is a good example of what Tony could have become if he hadn’t had those bonds keeping ego somewhat grounded.

I have no problem with Mickey Rourke having an acting career, I just have a problem with him not wearing a shirt.

I see some complaining that the film seemed chaotic in places or poorly paced, to me that wasn’t a detriment, it enforced the film as Tony Stark isn’t exactly a conventional or logical character. A battle that is life or death to a normal superhero holds little meaning to Stark. He knows he will win. Thus there is no need for him to worry. His ego won’t allow it. He is a different kind of superhero. This might be hard for some to embrace but if you are going to truly capture the essence of Tony Stark than you can’t make a traditional three act superhero film. It needs to be chaotic. It needs to weave in and out of plots. It needs to have imperfections because it needs to follow an imperfect protagonist.

Not Pictured: Optimus Prime and Shia LaBeouf

In my eyes this film did exactly what it needed to do and did it with flying colors.

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Anyway, The Ugly Truth is certainly not the latest romantic comedy to vomit forth from Hollywood, but it is the only one I’ve seen. I guess Netflix is a wonderful thing; mainly because I didn’t pay for this movie, and I’m glad I didn’t. It’s shallow, it’s overdone and it certainly wouldn’t be worth the $9 I’d have to pay to be subjected to jokes at my expense. It would not have been a very good reward for watching this piss-poor excuse for anything. Let’s get on with this, shall we?

Katherine Heigl plays Abby, a control freak producer of a local TV news segment in California whose ratings are pretty much going the way of Gerard Butler’s career. She can’t keep men interested in her, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for her. I can only assume we are since women are always the victim, though. Anyway, she watches a cable access show one night after a date and calls in after Leonidas starts yelling about madness and freedom. Oh, sorry, it’s about how men want nothing but hot bitches hosted by Mike Chadway (Butler). In a pathetic move, Abby makes up the ideal man for her, and then gets told that she’s ugly by Mike. The whole exchange could have been made over the internet, and I don’t think there would have been any variation.

Either way, Abby goes to work the next day to find that Mike is going to be on the show and she pretty much flips out. Of course, Mike is crass and vulgar to her, and she just doesn’t like the man at all. The hatred just doesn’t really transfer to the screen for me though, seeing as how the two leads have absolutely no chemistry. Honestly, you could have replaced Heigl with a ripe orange and nothing would have changed. In fact, with the below face, it could have been amazing.

The movie panders on with clichés and unfunny moments, more inciting a feeling of nausea than laughs. About 28% through the movie, Abby meets a doctor that could be a potential boyfriend. After Mike somewhat grows on her (BUDDING RELATIONSHIP), he helps her attempt to get the guy. This leads to such hilarious moments as what looks like a handjob at a baseball game, a vibrating panty incident and that’s all actually. It wasn’t very funny, honestly.  Oh, I guess that summed up this movie. HAH.

At the end, in a predictable move, Chadway tells Abby that he loves her after she calls out Mike’s flaws (blaming men or whatever), and then Mike rebuts calling out women. In an extremely bitchy move, Abby doesn’t even say that she loves him back until he calls her out on that. What a cunt, I’d punch her out of the balloon. Of course, I’m a manly man. I don’t need help getting women, and I’m certainly not Mike Chadway. I’m a lumberjack, and fuck trees, especially the ones that were wasted on Heigl’s copy of the script.

Oh, and something bothered me. Why were the credits in lower case? Fuck you, use proper English. Also, why wasn’t John Michael Higgins used more? He’s funny.

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The Syfy Channel has brought us groans, laughs, and induced us into bore filled lapses of sleep. Such highlights as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, Megafault, and many, many less worthy titles. From legendary Oscar winning film mogul Roger Corman comes quite possibly his magnum opus. Sharktopus. Let me say it again: SHARKTOPUS. If you ask me the suggestive situation that the Mega Shark and Giant Octopus were last seen in may not have been PG-13, but I never expected a Sharktopus to come out of that entanglement. Regardless, the film promises to deliver everything that has just pooped into your head. And no, I did not misspell popped.

Via io9

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For those of you who don’t know, the original Taxi Driver was one of the films that made Robert De Nero famous. Now it looks like Danish director and screenwriter Lars Von Trier is in talks to remake the 1976 classic Taxi Driver.  A Copenhagen magazine, Ekko, has reported that while Scorsese was attending the Berlin Film Festival he had also met up with the Danish director to talk about the possibility of creating a Taxi Driver remake.   The magazine also went on to say Taxi Driver would be starring Robert De Niro once again — to me this sounds more like speculation than truth seeing as how Scorsese is only in talks for this remake.   When Ekko tried to reach Von Trier’s colleague Peter Aalbek he neither denied nor confirming this report only stating there would be an official announcement made public shortly.  My guess is that if this is actually true Scorsese would be making the announcement himself when he gets back from Berlin where is he attending the premier of his new movie Shutter Island.  Taxi Driver won the Palme d’Or and was nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture.  To make a remake of the movie would be interesting only if De Niro starred and Scorsese oversees the development.  If not for these two men participating in this project; it may just be another remake failure.  To be honest though I would take a straight up sequel directed by Scorsese and starring De Niro in lieu of a remake directed by someone else.

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From the very beginning, James Cameron has attempted to teach humanity that it just isn’t supposed to get along with creatures different than itself. He’s shown us how man fares against mechanical monstrosities (The Terminator), acid blooded aliens (Aliens…), and giant unsinkable ships (Titanic). We just weren’t meant to befriend these creatures. Finally, James Cameron showed us why all these creates and inanimate objects are trying to kill us or willing to watch us drown: we killed the blue people.

At the beginning we are introduced to Jake Sully: a paraplegic, British accent hiding, crew cut, traitorous swine! Ah, well, not yet at least. Right now he’s just a man in a wheel chair looking to earn his legs… You can laugh. Upon arriving after the long space voyage to the planet Pandora, it becomes evident that Jake’s twin, able bodied brother who was also born with a larger brain, died in cryosleep. This makes Jake valuable to the on planet ‘Avatar’ research program. Since each of the telepathically controlled blue kittens are tailored specifically for certain DNA pilots, it’s impossible to just hand the controls of one to someone else. What a fortunate break for the science group. Eywa be praised!

Look, I could go on for exactly two hours and forty minutes about the incredibly thin story mechanics present in this. But I’m assuming you’ve watched a trailer, read another review or gotten a phone call from your friend after they saw it and were forced to hang up on them and block their calls. You can piece together everything that is going to happen in this movie, and chances are you did so a long time ago. Especially when James Cameron was thrown out on stage at last year’s Ubisoft Conference at E3 2009. He gave away everything.

I’m going to get to the point here and tell you what you wanted to know: it’s worth seeing. More importantly, it’s worth seeing in 3D, or IMAX if you have it available in your area. The movie is definitely long, and as such you really don’t notice any of the depth effects that may be going on during the film, but there are those times when it reminds you why you’re wearing those goofy glasses. This bodes more for my personal theater, but I’m glad the glasses we were given were new. Last time mine were – well, we won’t say what was on the first pair I got.

The CG in this film is definitely impressive. Only other movie that I can call off the top of my head with as good presentation was King Kong, where they digitally reduced Adrian Brody’s nose from dwarfing the screen. I don’t know why they decided to put Peter Jackson in a suit for the majority of it though. A WETA created ape would have looked just as good. Like King Kong, Avatar was very long. But thank God it wasn’t half as boring.

You can’t really ignore a movie like this no matter how hard you try. When Hollywood spends this much time, money and effort on something, you’re guaranteed to see it mentioned everywhere for a while. If you think it’s bad now, wait for when the DVD/Blu-Ray goes on sale in a few months. You better see it now so those MPAA spy chips can relay the neural patterns to your television sets that you’ve seen the movie already and reduce the ads during commercials. I bet you didn’t know they worked that way. All makes sense now, doesn’t it?

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This movie isn’t as much a disaster film so much as it is a disaster of a film. For those of you that have had the unfortunate fate to have seen 10,000 B.C. I can tell you 2012 isn’t a whole lot better. The acting is really bad, the script is even worse and dear God the thing just will never frickin end!

Let me start however with the positives, well what little positive things there were. The CG affects were top notch. The disaster scenes were epic, even more so than those seen in The Day After Tomorrow. These are what brought people to the theatre and they did not disappoint. Seeing California disappear into the Pacific Ocean was one of the most fantastical moments in disaster film history.

Entertaining too was a cameo appearance by one Woody Harrelson. The opening of the film was about as slow moving and dry as can be and without his entertaining portrayal of a conspiracy nut the film would have lost the audience much earlier than it ultimately did. This however is a double edge sword and ultimately leads to the films biggest failure.

It has no identity. In every aspect it tries to play things both ways and as a fan of films you know that never ends well.

For starters rather than play it like a straight drama as we saw in The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich puzzlingly instead decides to add in extremely cheesy and annoying comedy. The scenes of disasters surrounding all this dumb comedy however are delivered with raw realism. Buildings are collapsing and people are falling out of them to their deaths like we all saw when the twin towers fell and the film is cracking Disney channel level jokes during all this. The world is ending, billions of people are dying, and dying before you ON SCREEN and we are getting Hannah Montana level jokes about mosquito bites, breast implants, racial stereo types, dumb blondes and exposed ass cracks. To put things in perspective 2012 made the comedy of Race To Witch Mountain look mature and eloquent. I cannot under score enough how big of a problem this was. Emmerich sets up scenes to have really raw emotional responses from the crowd but then he completely pulls the rug out from under himself with stupid comedy and over the top unbelievable action sequences.

Now you could describe John Cusack as many things, but one of those things would certainly not be tough guy. I would find it unbelievable to see him defeat a woman in a fight let alone see him pull of the Jason Statham level stunts his character achieves in this flick. Again the problem arises of Emmerich trying to have it both ways. He picks Cusack to play an every man, weak and helpless, which works if you make them weak and helpless! He even goes so far as painting the picture of him as this weak pathetic shell of a man who cant even father his own children or care enough to fight for his marriage, but then when the action starts what do we get? John frackin Cusack jumping cars through buildings like hes the Transporter. Jumping RV’s over lava filled craters and I kid you not, driving a car out of a crashing airliner onto an Icy Mountain. Yes. John Cusack. Un-frickin-believable! If you want it to be an action film then cast an action star. Casting an actor who usually plays, lets just say, less than masculine characters is an epic failure.

Also not to be underestimated is how poor and clunky the script is written. Pick a Hollywood cliché and you’ll find it here. This script redefines “by the numbers.”.

Pilot dying and someone with flight experience stepping in… Check.

Dumb blonde girl getting who cares more about her dog than surviving herself… Check.

Escaping at the last minute every single time… Check.

I could go on… And on.

To paint the picture of the craptastic levels this script hits I give you these particular examples.

John Cusacks character is a divorced writer who is a limo driver part time. He drives around the film’s Russian Billionaire who just so happens to be married to a hot blonde who gets plastic surgery from Cusack’s ex-wife’s new husband. Holy sitcom plot but that’s not all. The book he wrote only sold 500 copies yet the main geologist who discovers everything is currently reading it and low and behold they end up meeting! Great writing guys you might just have a future writing for CSI.

The most insulting part of the film however is the double sided government plot. They are pure evil and have numerous people killed to protect their secret throughout the course of the film, they use slave labor, leave billions to die horrible deaths to save only the rich, yet one heart felt speech changes all their minds? Are you f’n kidding me?

The film is ridiculously long as well clocking in at around an intolerable 2 hours and 30 mins. Now I’m not against long movies if they need to be that length. This however did not. We get treated to side stories featuring characters that are secondary to the secondary characters. This too is one of those movies where the world is falling to bits but the characters have all the time in the world to stop and discuss things and by things I don’t mean how they will survive, I mean why the girl got a boob job. You know. What we’d all be discussing if we were likely going to die soon. The CG scenes grow old fast as well, unlike The Day After Tomorrow the variety is sparse. We get Earthquakes, Lava and floods, rinse and repeat 10 times.

That is only about half the fail. To truly convey how awful this movie is would take a 25 page paper. So basically my final statement is…

RUN! As far away from this film as possible. If someone tries to make you go see it they are not your friend. Cut them from your life. If you feel the impulse to see this just remember 10,000 B.C. and if that doesn’t work, well, all I gotta say is…

I warned you.

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Animated by Studio4°C, The Babysitter tells the story of four Helljumpers, sent on a mission to eliminate a key covenant prophet on a distant planet and to photograph ancient architecture that predates both the humans and the Covenants. Their biggest concern being the Spartan sent to accompany them on this mission. The Babysitter focuses on the rivalry between the Spartan-II Commandos and the ODST.

The story starts off on the Destroyer DD-933 where MSgt Cortez and his team are briefed on the mission at hand and informed that they are to be accompanied by Spartan Cal-141. Minutes later they are dropped from orbit in their HEV’s onto an unknown Covenant-held world. Checkman, a member of the team, is killed after his Drop Pod collides with an asteroid and enters the atmosphere sideways. After landing, the remaining team consisted of Dutch, O’Brian, Cortez, and Cal-141. O’Brian felt that this entire mission was an insult to his abilities after being delegated as back up and seems to spend the entire movie being rescued numerous times by Cal-141. When they first land, O’Brian’s SOEIV (HEV) crashes into a pond and while the rest of the team struggles to get to him, Cal-141 effortlessly walks in and tosses the SOEIV out of the water like it was nothing more than a toy. After a quick stare down between Cal-141 and O’Brian, they were on their way. As they traverse through the woods, they come across a pack of grunts that they kill silently and meticulously, like they are trained to do. Just before they kill the last grunt, a Brute Chieftain shows up wielding a gravity hammer.

After an epic battle between Cal-141 and the Chieftain, with a busted eye and a face only a mother could love, the Chieftain is thrown over the side of the waterfall. O’Brian is tossed to the side during the altercation and is sent over the side of the waterfall, only to be saved again by Cal-141, who carries him off like a baby. After a days walk the group finally makes it to where they are taking the shot. As Cal-141 is about to take the shot, the Chieftain from earlier returns and attempts to kill O’Brian. Cal-141 saves him at the last second and ends up taking the blow from the Chieftain’s hammer. The ODST’s tackle the Chieftain to the ground and Cortez shoots the Brute in the eye with his M7S. Cortez goes to Cal-141 and takes off the destroyed helmet only to find that this bad ass Spartan is a girl. Cal-141 yells at O’Brian to take the shot, which he does after minimal hesitation and the Prophet is taken out. Cal-141 then hands Cortez a memory chip with the data from the mission and tells him to take it to Dr. Halsey. Cal-141 dies and the team returns to the Destroyer where they are congratulated by Berger for stopping the Covenant supply chain for the entire arc sector.

Making a film of Halo in anime-style isn’t the best idea in the world but it turned out rather well. If it had been done more like Vexille it would have been perfect only because the animators would have been able to give the characters more detail. This lack of detail causes the characters to come off as being really bland, with no attitude or personality. Cal-141’s walk through the water reminded me of how all girls walk in anime. Short, dainty steps. The Spartan’s armor was very plain and seemed out of proportion. While Studio4°C did an awesome job with the backgrounds, they just didn’t follow through with the different characters. Other than that, The Babysitter was awesome to watch.

The next film, Duel, will be released on November 21.

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This fear of computers is matched only by our curiosity of their eventual capabilities, and their presence on film, as both friend and foe, has become as common as their place in our everyday lives.

Sadly, not all cinematic computers are supremely capable. Whether in reasoning or execution, some of them have been embarrassingly incompetent; we’re talking Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor to your high school calculator’s Al Borland.

The Interocitor

Film: This Island Earth

Appearing in the classic science fiction film This Island Earth (as spoofed in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie), the Interocitor is a computer of alien design that, as you may expect, is ridiculously advanced. Its jack-of-all-trades design makes it useful as everything from a communications device to an energy weapon. The character Dr. Cal Meacham even quips, “There’s no limit to what it could do. Laying a four lane highway at the rate of a mile a minute would be a cinch.”

So what’s the problem? According to the Interocitor instruction manual (yes, I’m serious), no component can be replaced. Wait, what? The most advanced technology the human race has ever encountered is incapable of being upgraded? That’s like having a recipe for the perfect bread, with the caveat that it’ll disintegrate when in contact with peanut butter (read: it’s useless).

Oh, wait second! I get it. It’s just an Apple product.

EDI

Film: Stealth

As if Stealth was not already offensive enough for its egregious tokenizing and the insulting implication that its audience could possibly be stupid enough to find it entertaining, it also simultaneously pisses on the graves of Alan Turing and Isaac Asimov in its spectacularly nonsensical portrayal of artificial intelligence.

EDI, or “Extreme Deep Invader” (oh, grow up, will you?), is an impressive artificially intelligent pilot that could change the face of warfare. Instead of human pilots bombing civilians on foreign soil, we’ll now have machines bombing civilians on foreign soil, which makes it okay. As expected, EDI initially seems perfect for the job, doing everything a human pilot can do, but far more efficiently. Unfortunately, this includes going completely bat-shit insane.

After being struck by lightning, EDI becomes self-aware… and nuts. This plot device may have worked for Mary Shelley back in the nineteenth century, but today it just won’t fly (excuse the pun). Anyway, unlike humans in the military who, after going mad, just spend their lives on street corners lashing out at random passers by, EDI attempts to trigger World War 3, then ends up deliberately sacrificing itself to clean up the mess it made in the first place. How logical.

Proteus

Film: Demon Seed

Proteus is an artificial intelligence (aren’t they all?) that becomes rogue (as usual) and decides that it wants something ridiculously inane, no matter how many corpses it must climb over to get it.

In this case, Proteus – which contains the sum of all human knowledge – decides that it wants to be “alive” in a biological sense. Instead of an eternal life of prestige and respect as the world’s greatest computer, it wants to go through the typical human life cycle of zero bladder control, awkwardness, angst, misery, and finally back to loss of bladder control before an undignified death. Doesn’t sound very fucking smart to me.

Proteus kidnaps the wife of its creator by trapping her inside her entirely computerized home. It then proceeds to use her cells to manufacture an unholy collection of robo-zygotes with which to impregnate her. It’s all very ugly, and let’s just say that an abortion would require little more than an industrial electromagnet.

In the end, however, a creepily voiced, megalomaniacal baby emerges from Proteus’ incubator in the first ever live-action portrayal of Stewie Griffin.

Lucy

Film: Homewrecker

In a role tailor-made for Kate Jackson, she plays a computer in this awful TV movie.

A scientist decides to live the fantasy of every teenage hacker who has yet to know the touch of a woman: he reprograms his computer with the personality of a girl, which then falls completely, utterly, obsessively in love with him. This sounds great, right? You sidestep the dating game entirely and go straight to living with a girl who doesn’t get inconveniently timed headaches, doesn’t expect you to live up to her father, nor balloons physically following the obligatory “honeymoon period”. Furthermore, she probably has a volume control, which I personally believe would improve the quality of any relationship when installed on a woman.

Sadly, things don’t work out and the scientist goes back to his estranged wife. At this point things go from great to not-so-great as Lucy begins to act like a real jilted ex-lover and turns murderous.

Could our protagonist not have sidestepped this whole problem by coding an “open relationship” subroutine for Lucy? Oh, well. We live and learn.

The Matrix

Film: You’re kidding, right?

You know the story, so I won’t rehash it. And if you’ve never seen The Matrix, boy are you on the wrong site!

As with all films that attain cult-like levels of popularity, most aspects of The Matrix have been criticized at some point. One annoyance that is often overlooked, though, is the competence of the AI behind the world of the matrix itself. The collective consciousness that makes up the entirety of the machine population, both inside the matrix and in the “real” world.

As any engineer will tell you, the fact is that bioelectric power is so inefficient compared to solar power that one large solar panel will generate the same amount of power as the entire harvested human race. I know what you’re thinking: The humans scorched the skies in an attempt to cut off the machines’ access to the sun, which precipitated the use of “human batteries” in the first place. Good point, but in Revolutions we see Neo and Trinity pilot a ship above the level of the clouds, only to be greeted by a beautiful clear sky and beaming sun. Would it not still be much easier for the machines simply to wipe out the human race entirely, and build – oh, I don’t know – elevated solar panels above cloud level? Or better yet, orbiting panels that concentrate energy into ground-based refineries. To a computerized consciousness capable of crafting an entire persistent artificial world, this should be a cakewalk.

Sadly, the matrix – just like every other computer system that decides to take over the world – is plagued by the Achilles’ heel of incompetence.

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Depending on how much you believe in ghosts and demons, this film can be either really scary or really boring.  Also, this is a film made to look like it was done with a camcorder (Blair Witch, Cloverfield, etc.), so some people may be turned off right from the get-go by this style of film making.  Basically, the  film starts out with a boyfriend, Micah, that bought a new camera and wants to see if the house he lives in is being haunted.  Micah’s girlfriend, Katie, is no stranger to these odd encounters, but both are excited to just try and catch some evidence on camera.  The best scenes in the film are taken while the couple is sleeping, because it seems that the “ghostly” visitor only shows up at night.  The true terror of the films strikes the audience by making them question, “Do these things happen while I’m asleep?”  The thought of demons and ghosts invading your personal life is scary, because there truly is nowhere to hide, and we see that with Micah and Katie feeling like a prisoner in their own home.

If you were a ghost, you'd want to haunt this couple...right?

While it is nice to see a fresh new horror film in theaters, I think the pacing on the film is a bit too slow for many people.  The first half of the film is more like an episode of True Life: I Live in a Haunted House, then the latest scary theater outing.  The start of the nightly scares are nothing more than a door moving or a shadow grazing the door, and then it goes back to daytime, where we see the couple just watching and questioning their footage.  While I wish it would of picked up much earlier on, I must admit, that a  little over halfway through the film, all Hell breaks loose and we get some good scares.  The final twenty minutes of the film has to be some of the wildest stuff, and your girlfriend will be clinging to your arm like a fat man clings to a Big Mac.  One little gripe I had was with the acting…which is tough to do with a movie like this, that requires the actors to look like they are not acting.  While Micah was pretty funny and gave a solid performance, Katie sometimes was so melodramatic, that people in the theater were actually laughing at some of the lines she delivered.

If you are one of those people that are into shows like Ghost Hunters and anything about the supernatural, then Paranormal Activity is the film for you.  While the film wasn’t all about huge scares, it was more haunting than anything, and you will be thinking about it for a week after viewing.  The guerrilla film work, reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project, really works for the film, making things a bit more believable; they even went as far as showing no opening or closing credits.  It’s not really a film worth seeing in theaters, but I recommend that everybody see it at least once, since it’s more about the experience than some that will scare you again and again.  While it is far from perfect, it’s a hell of a lot better than another crappy Saw sequel.

One of many haunting images in Paranormal Activity.