Yeah, i am lagging on new content here. Trying to finish editing a photobook, working on another project, and Halloween just a week away all take their toll.
I did manage to see a couple movies over the weekend, The Three Musketeers and Paranormal Activity 3. Musketeers marks director Paul W.S. Anderson’s follow-up to Resident Evil: Afterlife, one of my favorites from last year. While it’s getting killed at the box office, and by online word of mouth, i really quite liked it. It’s got Le Chiffre, The Punisher, Christoph Waltz, and Milla Jovovich as a 17th century Catwoman…what the fuck is not to like? There’s also a <spoiler>battle between steampunk airships that ends with a 9-11 visual punchline straight out of Xavier: Renegade Angel, which comes out of nowhere, and is spectacularly random.</spoiler>
Just like Afterlife, the 3D was very well done, and worth the upcharge. It’s crammed full of action, intrigue, charming characters, and heaving cleavage. While I didn’t like it as much as the last Resident Evil, that may be due in part to the utter lack of A Perfect Circle on the soundtrack.
OTOH, went into Paranormal Activity 3 with low expectations, and the movie managed to limbo under them. Maybe i’m just pissed that these fucking furniture-on-a-string movies helped kill the Saw franchise (this is the first Saw-less Halloween since 2004), which were in no way masterworks, but became the cinematic equivalent of Halloween comfort food. I liked that the climax of PA3 takes place in Moorpark, CA, which is totally believable as a haven of murderous cultists, but otherwise this was pretty much joyless and scare-free.
If you absolutely have to go, though, make sure to bring chemically-altered friends. Watching them spastically overreact to the stupid jump scares is exponentially more entertaining than anything happening on-screen.
3 Responses to “Living up and down to expectations”
Tell me more about the PA3 finale, please! I don’t care to see it (or either of the previous two) but I went to school in Moorpark so I’m curious as to how that all happens, and if they identify it as Moorpark or if they just shot there and call it something else.
That woman is so ugly it’s not even funny …
Damn you Milla Yovovich.
spoilers for anyone who cares about Paranormal Activity 3…
It’s a prequel to the first 2 movies, set in 1988. The two sisters who were the leads of 1 and 2, respectively, are kids, and they’re being haunted by a ghost/demon named Toby.
After Toby viciously rearranges the family kitchen (the big effect/jump scare in the movie) they flee to Grandma’s house which a graphic tells us is in Moorpark. All we ever see is the interior/exterior of a house, so who knows, but i’ll go ahead and take them at their word, because who the fuck is going to lie about being in Moorpark?
Turns out Grandma is secretly part of a coven of ill-defined satanic witches, and late at night they all gather to off the parents, and arrange a marriage between one of the little girls and Toby the invisible demon guy. The end. It’s a horribly lame movie.
And Milla ugly? Is it Opposite Day?