Buried -A Review-

Have you seen Buried yet? No? You should! I gotta say I was intrigued by the premise but I wasn't sure there could be enough to keep it moving and frankly, as much as I love and admire Ryan Reynolds' abs, I wasn't convinced he was the guy to pull it off. I was wrong, and I was wrong.
The story moves forward at a decent pace and Ryan has chops never seen before!
This movie had me sitting stock still for an hour and a half fascinated by what might happen next; no small praise for a film which takes place entirely in a coffin six feet underground. Literally. No cuts to the outside world, no flashbacks; everything you see happens in the small coffin. You might think this limiting. You'd be WRONG.

Here's the poop:

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) The Green Lantern)) is a supply trucker in Iraq. He wakes up at the start of the film in a box. He has a lighter and a cell phone, plus a few other trinkets to help him get by until he pays a ransom demanded by a caller who tells him he has 2 hours to pay "Five million money" or he's left to die six feet under.
What ensues is beyond imagination! Afterwards I thought, "could I possibly think about what would happen if I was buried alive? What I would do?"

Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes and writer Chris Sparling explore and exploit every plausible option given the protagonists limited means. It would be too easy to spoil this movie with specifics, so I'll just say that you'll be surprised what dramatic tension can be wrought from a box. I was rivited most of the time, and the other times I was sharing Paul's moments of solace when he was thinking... what... what could he have been thinking in those moments? He's buried alive! Maybe I was feeling his hope, or his loss of hope. The film shifts back and forth between the two right until the end. And what an ending!
I won't say anything other than I was completely engrossed the entire time, and I was completely engrossed by the final act. It was just great storytelling. Period.
This is why you go to see thrillers; to be thrilled. This is a simple idea that reminds you that good ideas can be enough, that special effects and explosions aren't always necessary. Those movies can be fun too, but every once in awhile a movie comes along that lets you just enjoy the extended moment of discomfort and identify with the protagonist. You and he are there. What's gonna happen?

See this film because it's well written, it's more than well directed, and because it's a great performance from Ryan Reynolds, who soon might consider this his breakout role despite his having toiled in Hollywood for years. I think he'll get better offers after this.

DVD is currently available.
See rottentomatoes.com for confirmation if you aren't sure.

I Spit On Your Grave 2011 - A DVD Review

I went in to this movie expecting it would be horrible, I won't lie. I heard that it was rape porn, followed by revenge killing porn. I heard it was repugnant, base, and not worth seeing due to it's fails on all fronts.


And then I would be remiss if I didn't mention my idol, Roger Ebert, gave it a scathing, zero stars review.


Well deserved from his point of view, I'm sure. Let's face it; I base what I see on him 75% of the time. He's a genius.


That said, I finally saw this film and was intrigued by it's making: the process. It felt very cut-and-paste. Like the filmmakers read a book called :How To Make A Modern Horror Film'. Here we go:


1: Cast a group of goodlooking actors, except for the parts played by sherrifs or retards, make them less goodlooking, but still camera ready.


2: Make sure the gorgeous victim somehow loses access to her cell phone. Whether it's by being out of range or dropping it in a toilet... oops... spoiler alert!


3: She should be totally comfortable in her strange surroundings immediately, and when she hears a strange noise it's no big deal the first three times.


4: The fourth time a strange noise is heard the victim should realize they might be in trouble, but not really.


5: The victim is in trouble.





I'm sorry, we've seen this a thousand times lately, especially with the remakes. They lose all sense of the original and kid themselves into being able to do it better. Well guess what? They can't!



Well, let me give you the low-down.
Sarah is a writer moving to a cabin in the middle of nowhere so she can write another novel all alone, with no distractions. Unfortunately on the way she offends some gas jockeys at the small town gas bar. No big deal, right?!
Well, I ain't spoilin' nothin' if I tell you they don't take kindly to uptight city bitches! What did we expect! Seriously!
Without ruining the 'story' eventually they rape her. What come next is a rapists nightmare!!! (Unless you worked on any of the Saw movies.)
She exacts her revenge in many and gruesome ways. Some even implausible, but, whatever, it's a death.
I won't see this movie again. Not because it was challenging or controversial, only because it wasn't good.

Too bad, because I liked the lead girl Sarah Butler. She was good. Hopefully she'll get more work and this will just be a very small feather in her acting cap. Maybe they'll say, "Well, you were the only good thing about that movie."





Here's the deets:


I Spit On Your Grave 2011


DVD Available


See it if you've run out of options and want to dissect bad horror.