{Review} A KID LIKE JAKE

 

So, I do this thing where I don't like to watch or read anything while it's popular with the majority of society. I like to wait until the hype dies down before I take a look at it. I did it with Harry Potter, Sex and the City, and more.

A Kid Like Jake is listed as a 2018 American comedy-drama film. I agree with the drama portion of the description, but I didn't find a lot of comedy in the film. The film was written by Daniel Pearle based on his own 2013 play of the same name.

You can tell from the poster above that there are some pretty popular actors in this film: Claire Danes, Jim Parsons, Octavia Spencer, and a couple more. The basic premise of the movie is a set of parents who try to figure the best, positive, way to help their son come into his own being. He was born a boy but displays effeminate traits. He's turning five and is about to begin school so making sure he has a healthy sense of self is important.

Greg, the father, wants Jake to begin counseling to help him express his feelings and healthy ways of expressing his emerging emotions. Alex, the mom, is pretty blind to the fact that Jake's displaying gender non-conformity behaviors. She thinks her friends and husband are attacking her way of mothering when they're just trying to help her see what's so clearly in front of her. Really, Alex was a little much for me. She was taking the situation personally when she should've been focusing on Jake and trying to discuss with Greg what was best for Jake's well-being.

Overall, the movie wasn't horrible, but I wish it would've focused more on Jake and how he felt. The poor boy barely had any speaking parts. I understand that 4- and 5-year-olds probably aren't very articulate about how they're feeling. I just felt like the movie was more about Jake's parents than about Jake, which left me feeling kind of 'meh' about the whole thing.

{Movie Review} Dracula Untold

Release Date: October 10, 2014

Rating: PG-13

Length: 92 minutes

Genre(s): Action, Drama Fantasy

Description:

Facing threats to his kingdom and his family, Vlad Tepes makes a deal with dangerous supernatural forces - whilst trying to avoid succumbing to the darkness himself.

Director: Gary Shore

Writers: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Bram Stroker

Main Cast: Luke Evans (Vlad), Sarah Gadon (Mirena), Dominic Cooper (Mehmed)

Mandy's Review:

The hubs and I went and saw this movie because I'm a fan of all things dark and creepy and he's a fan of action. When we can find a movie to fit both of our criteria, we have to go to the theater to see it. I wanted this movie to fulfill my internal bloodlust ... my desire for it grows during October, especially the closer it gets to Halloween. What I wasn't expecting was to have my heart wrenched in a few spots.

The movie begins as a narrative with action stills giving life to the words being spoken. Right away you can see the style and direction the film will take. The dark colors with pops of blood red accentuate the darkness of the film's premise. It reminded me a bit of 300 with how the movie was filmed.

Luke Evans portrayed the tormented Vlad wonderfully ... and I must say that the shots of his chiseled torso had no sway on my opinion of his acting abilities (insert innocent look here). He was scary violent when needed, but heartbreakingly sweet and tender when it came to his wife (played by Sarah Gadon) and child.

On the other hand, Dominic Cooper was too pretty to play the bad boy. Every time his face came on the screen all I could think about was how beautiful his skin was, how perfectly sculpted his eyebrows were, and how beautifully put-together he was. Personally, I think that distracts from his character and another actor should've been chosen to portray Mehmed.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It didn't scare me as I was hoping for when watching movies during October, but it did have me feeling all the feels while watching. I loved it when Vlad kicked ass, I nearly cried when Vlad had to give his son away, and I was sad and proud of the choice he made to obtain the power to defeat the Turks attacking his land. This movie was definitely entertaining and action-packed. If you're looking for a more historically recognizable account of Count Dracula, you'll not find it here. All others who are looking for a movie to kill an hour and a half while being drawn into a character you think you know will enjoy Dracula Untold.

{Netflix Movie Review} Lizzie

Directed By: David Dunn, Jr.

Created and Screenplay Written By: Leif Holt

Genre: Thriller

Release Date: 2012

Plot:

On August 4th, 1892, Andrew Jackson Borden and Abby Durfee Borden were brutally murdered with an old household hatchet. The blows of the murder weapon were so violent and numerous that their faces and skulls were unrecognizably disfigured. Although acquitted, it is common knowledge that the daughter, Lizzie Borden, is responsible for this savage evil act.

The present day Lizzie Allen suffers from an extreme case of childhood amnesia which not only lays dark her childhood memories but also her relationship, or lack thereof, of her parents themselves. When Lizzie discovers the news of her father's death, she inherits the house she once lived in and therefore a new place to live.

But as she begins to settle in, she starts to get a glimpse of her childhood memories along with clues as to what really happened in the Borden household in 1892. We follow Lizzie's journey as she attempts to distinguish between the two and strives to reach her own sanity and happiness while doing so.

Movie Trailer:

Mandy's Review:

I'm usually interested in any movie that's based on a true story and, with this movie being made in 2012, I thought that Lizzie would be decently made. I couldn't have been more wrong.

For those of you who don't know the story of Lizzie Borden, let me give you a little background.

Lizzie Borden was born on July 19, 1860 in Fall River, Massachusetts (the same town my mother-in-law is from ... coincidence?). Lizzie's mother died soon after she was born and Lizzie's father, Andrew, remarried Abby Durfee Gray. Lizzie lived with her father and step-mother on into adulthood. On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found murdered in their home. Lizzie was arrested and tried for the axe murders. She was acquitted in 1893 and continued to live in Fall River until her death, on June 1, 1927. The case was never solved. To check out Lizzie's full biography, you can check out this website.

As I watched the movie I was hoping that Lizzie Allen would be a reincarnation of Lizzie Borden. I was hoping that the integration of past and present would be seamless and magical. I was sorely disappointed. The special effects were horrid. I watch a lot of Face Off (a SyFy series about movie makeup) and the newbies on that reality series could have done a better job on the actor's and actresses' faces in Lizzie. It was evident that the actress playing Lizzie Borden's mom was young and the makeup on her was supposed to make her look old, but the makeup made her look more like a Halloween character than an old lady.

The acting was just as bad as the movie makeup. The only actor I enjoyed was Corbin Bernsen (Psych, L.A. Law, and the Major League movies). Situations and actions performed by the actors and actresses did not always make sense. The movie was confusing and poorly executed. I would not recommend anyone watch this movie. It's bad enough that I've wasted almost two hours of my life watching it for this review.

{Movie Review} The Collection

Release Date: November 30, 2012

Director: Marcus Dunstan

Cinematography: Sam McCurdy

Screenplay: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan

Producers: Brett Forbes, Patrick Rizzotti, Mickey Liddell, Julie Richardson

About The Film:

(Taken from the official movie site)

From the writing-directing team Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Saw IV, V, VI and 3D) comes The Collection, a suspense horror film with nonstop thrills at every turn. Directed by Dunstan and starring Josh Stewart (The Dark Knight Rises, The Collector), Emma Fitzpatrick (The Social Network) and Christopher McDonald ("Boardwalk Empire," Requiem for a Dream), the film centers on a traumatized man forced to help rescue a beautiful woman who has become the latest obsession of a crazed killer who "collects" humans in a booby-trapped house of horrors.

When Elena (Fitzpatrick) is talked into attending an underground warehouse party with her friends, she finds herself caught in a nightmarish trap where the revelers are mowed, sliced and crushed to death by a macabre series of contraptions operated by a masked psychopath. When the grisly massacre is over, Elena is the only survivor. But before she can escape, she is locked in a trunk and transported to an unknown location.

Fortunately for Elena, one man - Arkin (Stewart) - knows exactly where she's headed, having just escaped from there with his life and sanity barely intact. Going back is the last thing on Arkin's mind, but Elena's wealthy father (McDonald) hires a crack team of mercenaries to force Arkin to lead them to the killer's lair. But even these hardened warriors are not prepared for what they encounter: an abandoned hotel-turned-torture-chamber, rigged with deadly traps and filled with mangled corpses. Can Arkin and the team get to Elena before she too becomes part of his gruesome "collection"?

Mandy's Review:

My oldest step-daughter and I decided to go see this move this past Sunday. We were the only two people at this particular showing and I'm glad we were. If other patrons had been there, they would've been annoyed by all of our "Oh my God, I can't watch this," "Uuuggghhhh," and "Are you kidding me?!"

Not until I just read the summary above did I realize that there was a prequel to this movie: The Collector. I do not remember seeing the previews for that, so this review is being done without any knowledge of the prequel.

As you know, there's a crazy man on the loose going around mass-murdering people and taking one person from each mass-murder for his collection. They're like living trophies from each murder scene, but then he takes them home and "plays" with them. Some he's murdered, some he's doped up and disfigured, while others he kills outright and then displays them in water in weird positions.

Arkin, as one of the crazy man's captures, has escaped. He was in a closed trunk in one of the underground warehouse party's rooms. Elena finds the room with him in it and decides to let him out ... which, of course, the opened trunk has now become the ignition switch for a crazy killing contraption that's been set up by our killer. Here's my question, though ... Why would the killer risk losing one of his captures by putting him in the trunk at the party? If he needed something heavy to weigh the trunk down, why not use sandbags? If he wanted the sound of someone scratching at the lid of the roof to attract someone to it to open it, why not put a monitor in the trunk with the receiver in another trunk in his lair? Or do a recording? Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but it's what I do.

While Arkin's in the hospital, he gets a visit from Elena's dad's mercenary-hires. Arkin eventually agrees to help them find where he was kept. How can he do this? Apparently, when he was in the trunk heading to the crazy man's lair, he would count to 100 and then cut a mark in his arm when he reached 100. Each mark represented if they went straight, turned, veered, stopped, etc. I can see a desperate man doing that, but here's where my confusion came in: How did he know where to tell the mercenaries to start driving? Granted, I didn't see the first movie and I'm sure it was about Arkin's capture, but after seeing this movie I have to assume that Arkin was in a public setting much like the club. If he was, how did he know where crazy man was parked? This man was locked in a trunk. I don't know about you, but if I'm locked in a trunk, I'm going to start panicking and not pay attention to my surroundings.

Overall, this movie was more gross than scary, which seems to be the direction horror movies are taking nowadays. I did get a little irritated at the end when they kept showing various parts of the killer's body, but wouldn't show his daggum face! They even went so far as to show the back of his head, unmasked, but wouldn't show his face. I know it's to keep you in suspense, but I wanted to see!

While this wasn't one of my favorite movies, the directors and producers did a great job. Even the actors did a great job - not one sucky performance out of any of them. So if you like a gross movie with lots of blood, then The Collection is one you need to see.