Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple

This is easily one of the most upsetting movies I have every seen. For those that don't know the story, it is a documentary of the "church" led by Jim Jones, which resulted in the deaths of 909 of his followers. From the very beginning this movie is depressing, and it only gets darker up to the very end.

Jim Jones is the charismatic founder of the Peoples Temple. From the beginning, his ideals attracted a mass following. He preached equality, creating the countries first interracial church. Somewhere along the line, however, he slowly began to descend into what can only be described as insanity. His followers gave up all of their possessions, donating all their money to the church, and moving into his commune. It is important that this commune moved from Indiana, to California, then finally out of the country to Guyana, with hundreds of people following him. The end result, was the suicide/murder of almost all of his followers.

It's difficult to review a movie- especially a documentary, based on the merit of the film itself and not the content. This movie, however, beautifully portrays the disturbing, and truly horrifying nature of these events. During the opening title sequence it clearly reveals the end of the story. The first half of the movie spends time investigating how Jones was able to amass such a following. Testimonies from members who survived, or left early on, describe him as an incredibly powerful and influential speaker.

The movie then delves into his madness, featuring clips with him saying "I am the only heterosexual on Earth, everyone else is homosexual," and perhaps most frighteningly "If you want me to be your friend, I will be your friend. I you want me to be your father, I will be your father. If you want me to be your God, I will be your God." Unfortunately the completely devoted trust people put in him was not returned.

In one truly frightening scene, he passed around Kool-aid for his congregation to drink. After they finished he stated that it was poison. In the midst of the chaos that ensued Jones then revealed that it was not true, and that it had simply been a test of their devotion. These tests continued in keeping people awake and working for a week at a time, and promoting his political agendas.

After the move to Guyana, it fell into a state of near captivity. It was literally a big brother society. Nobody was allowed to communicate with the outside world, and all news was filtered through him. Jones even went so far as to institute speakers playing his speeches twenty-four hours a day. People were encouraged to report any dissent, or anybody wishing to leave. Finally, Senator Theo Ryan from Texas began investigating the church, which resulted in his death, and the deaths of several of his assistants and journalists. After this, Jones felt that there was nothing left to do but end it all. This included the forced suicide of nearly all of his followers.

The movie is entirely narrated by those close to the church. The interviewees are primarily the few that escaped, and one of Ryan's aids who miraculously survived the murders. Each of these people were affected, and lost family members to the church- some losing their entire family. These interviews were truly heartbreaking.

It's not often that I write a review simply conveying the movie, but this movie is so powerful that I had no other way of doing it. I am still genuinely upset by it. Jonestown is not a film I will soon forget.

5/5

Film Fest

I know I've had kind of dry spell for good movies lately. But no fears. This week is the Athens Film Fest. Slated for my viewing pleasure this week is The Host, Copying Beethoven, The Lives of Others, Inland Empire, Jonestown, The Television Set, Relative Obscurity, and others. Expect reviews on all of these.

Black Christmas

This movie is bad. My god, it's just wretched. This is probably one of the worst of the horror movie remakes, at least on par with House of Wax. The original, though not a brilliant piece of film-making by any stretch, was at least able to take the concept of Christmas, and create a seriously dark twist- long before Tim Burton did that with Edward Scissor Hands. This remake, however, takes all of that dark wit, and ignores it, in favor of an attractive cast that's simply put on screen to get butchered.

I'm not going to lie: I was actually attracted to this movie from the cast. Lacey Chabert, Michelle Trachtenberg, and recent horror movie stars Kristen Cloke and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destinations, Death Proof). This almost promised to be the makings of a fun horror movie in the same vein as Scream. Unfortunately, none of this panned out. It's fairly clear where writer/director Glen Morgan's talent lies. This is his second directorial feature (the first being the underwhelming Willow- starring Crispin Glover). He also penned the first and third Final Destinations, as well as several X-Files episodes. I think this covers the breadth of his ability. It's a shame his work early on in his career with the X-Files was his best.

For those of you who care, the plot is as follows: sorority girls are celebrating Christmas and they start getting killed one by one by Billy, a serial killer who lived in their house as a child. The truly astounding part about this movie is that there are many more characters than it seems at the beginning. Supposedly all but a few of the sorority sisters have gone home for break, yet more and more keep popping up just in time to get killed. A movie like this should not be hard to follow, but I honestly did not know who half of the characters were. It's a little hard to care about someone getting killed when you didn't even know they were in the movie.

A movie like this actually has potential to be fun. Slasher movies can be done very creatively, albeit cheesy, but still creative. There are many flicks that feature utterly unique and creative murders. The only potential that Black Christmas had in this regard was quickly quelled. All of the deaths were exactly the same. Maybe this is me simply being desensitized, but these scenes were boring. Although, there were several sequences that made me very squeamish, and I couldn't watch. These were a tad too graphic for me. If you don't like things with eye-balls, stay clear of this movie.

I wish there was something good to say about Black Christmas, but there's not. Even the twist ending was boring. In summation, there are no words strong enough to describe how truly wretched this movie is. If I had not been watching it online, there's no way I would have ever even taken the time. The acting is bad, the characters are pointless, the story isn't even there, and except for a few gut wrenching scenes of grotesque violence, it's just boring. Very boring.

0/5

Disturbia

I had planned to go see the opening of Hot Fuzz this weekend, but unfortunately, the nearest theater that was showing it is two hours away. Instead I had to settle for this suburban horror flick. As many have probably noted, it's essentially a cross between Rear Window and the Burbs. It takes the tension of isolation from Rear Window, and the comedy of a truly dysfunctional, and bizarre neighborhood from the Burbs. I wasn't anticipated very much going into it, but I must say, it was not terrible.

A rather lengthy exposition results in Kale (played by Shia LeBeouf) being paced under house arrest. He is not allowed to leave his property for three months. At first it's great, but eventually he begins to go stir-crazy. To alleviate his boredom he starts spying on the neighbors. Among them, the family that moved in next to him, including daughter, Ashley (played by Sarah Roemer). The two of them develop an odd little relationship that revolves around spying on yet another neighbor, Mr. Turner (David Morse), whom they suspect of murder. This is where a bulk of the movie is centered.

The movie features an interesting blend of horror, while still focusing on character development. The relationship between Kale and Ashley grows along with their suspicion of Turner. There are some genuinely scary scenes when Ashley and their other friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) are doing Kale's dirty work, while he watches on helplessly. These scenes are more or less taken directly from Rear Window, and updated. The tension grows as Kale leaves his house, and the police are called several times. Of course, him being a criminal himself, nobody believes him.

Kale's mother, Julie (Carrie Ann-Moss), was my favorite character. Kale literally seems to be destroying her with his activities. As the movie progresses, she gets more and more desperate and unhappy, eventually turning to Turner for companionship. The relationship between Kale and his mom provides some of the best drama in the movie, while the chemistry between Kale and Ashley, is never all that believable.

This movie doesn't offer very many surprises, but it does do a fine job of building tension. you genuinely feel apprehension with the characters, and David Morse plays a pretty creepy character. As I said earlier, this movie takes the effort and time to develop the characters, but unfortunately, these scenes are not that interesting. There is an almost excruciatingly long exposition, and many extraneous scenes.

Disturbia is certainly not the best movie I have seen recently, but it's not the worst either. Some parts were a bit dull, but it still gets credit for bringing depth to the characters in a genre that normally does not. Shia LeBeouf and Carrie Ann-Moss sculpt engaging characters, proving that she can do much more than the Matrix, and that he has a long promising career. In the end, this movie isn't fascinating, but it has its moments.

3/5

The Reaping

If anything, this lukewarm thriller did one thing for me- cement my opinion that I do not like Hilary Swank. I know, she won best actress for Million Dollar Baby, and I don't get it. I didn't care for that movie, and I didn't care for her in it. The Reaping is no different. It's a mediocre movie with cool special, and unfortunately for me- one of the best trailers and marketing campaigns I've seen in a while. I should have figured that was simply to make up for a dud of a movie.

The premise is promising enough. Hilary Swank plays a college professor, Katherine Winter, who investigates supposedly religious miracles, and debunks them. She gets called to a small town in Louisiana that is supposedly under siege from biblical plagues. Water into blood, frogs, fire from the sky, the works. This idea drew me in especially with their aggressive marketing campaign. Generally, biblical ideas in modern settings always seems like an interesting premise, and I had never seen one such as this. I wish it had lived up to my expectations.

This first bit of the film is not terrible. If you overlook the acting not only by Swank, but by David Morrisey (who plays Doug, the man who recruits Winter), and Idris Elba (Ben, Winter's colleague). The first plagues are interesting to behold and genuinely a little scary. The conflict between Winter and the religious zealots of the town, especially the mayor (John McConnell). This is interesting to watch, even though the acting a bit overblown, and the idea gets rehashed over and over again. They are blaming the plagues on a little girl, and in every other scene there is a fight between Winter and someone about it. The basic structure follows: Plague, Winter and someone argue about blaming girl, Plague, Winter and another person argue about girl, Plague, etc. It goes on like this through the whole movie.

I'm not saying it's all banality like this. There is actually development of Swank's character as she struggles with her lost faith. None of this is ever really believable, however. Throughout the movie they drop little clues that I felt led to an obvious conclusion. Surprisingly, they managed to twist all of it around, and actually create a completely surprising conclusion. Unfortunately, the ending just wasn't very good. The ending I was expecting (as obvious as it would have been) would have also just been better. I guess a surprising ending doesn't necessarily make it good.

Visually it's a pretty good movie. The effects of plagues are fascinating to watch, but there's not very much of it. The plagues go by very quickly, and they movie doesn't linger on each one very long. I would liked to have seen more of a study of the plagues and what they are, instead just as fuel for more arguing.

Looking back on what I've written, it sounds like I've been really hash on this movie. It really wasn't terrible, just not very good. This was made worse by the high expectations I had going into it. The idea is there, just the substance to back it up is lacking. The acting falls flat, the ending falls flat, and the movie in general is just kind of a dud.

2.5/5

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

Right off the bat, I must say that I have been a really big fan of the Aqua Teens for years. I love their fifteen minute episodes of limited animation and pure randomness. Despite, or maybe because of this, I was very skeptical of the movie. I wasn't sure how they were going to make an hour and a half feature, so I went in with very low expectations. In the end it slightly exceeded my expectations, but only slightly.

If you're not familiar with the show, it focuses on three main characters- Frylock (a flying box of french fries played by Carey Means), Master Shake (a milkshake played by Dana Snyder), and Meatwad (a...um....wad of meat played by one of the directors and writers Dave Willis). They are somewhat a dysfunctional crime fighting team with Frylock being their intelligent leader, Shake being dumb, loud, offensive, egotistical, obnoxious, etc (the list goes on), and Meatwad being equally dumb, but adorably innocent. There is also a slew of other characters that make appearances in the show and in the movie.

The plot of the movie (if you can call it that) involves their neighbor, Carl. He gets trapped in an exercise machine that is going around the city destroying everything. The Aqua Teens have to rescue him, and it quickly turns into a story about their origin. The plot dissolves at every turn and is simply a showcase for terribly bizarre characters and gross out humor. This was not surprising at all, because that's how the show is created. Essentially the creators Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro say "This would be funny", then a completely unrelated "Oh, this would be funny", and so on. There is generally little to no coherent plot, which is a big part of what makes the show so funny.

Movies, unfortunately don't work that way. The show is great, because it's a barrage of really funny situations, then it's over. In the movie, they had about fifteen minutes of material, and stretched it out for an hour and a half. The usually write themselves into a corner and end the episode, whereas here, they wrote themselves into a corner, and kept going for another hour. Don't get me wrong, there were some genuinely funny moments. But in complete honesty, I was actually getting really bored towards the end.

The best part of the movie, the part that kept the audience laughing long after, was actually the opening sequence. It was a dark, twisted, heavy metal version take on the "Please no talking, no phones, etc" sequences that proceed movies. It was hysterically funny. I just wish the rest of the movie could have lived up to it. I think it would have been much better if they had created three or so half hour episodes. I think they could keep up a strong episode for that long, then have a different one. That I would have been happy to pay for.

There were certainly funny moments, and I found myself laughing through most of it. In the end it suffered the fate as most Saturday Night Life sketches turned movies. There just wasn't enough material for an entire feature. Aqua Teens is great for fifteen minutes, then end it. If you like Aqua Teens, you'll laugh at this movie, but it won't impress you. If you don't know the show, the movie will make no sense.

2/5

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut
November 11, 1922- April 11, 2007

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.