This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film is Not Yet Rated -- 3/5

My totally favorite podcast (Mugglecast) suggested this movie to me, so I finally got around to watching it! I give this documentary credit for being interesting, but there were some parts that made me a little irritated.

The director of the documentary hired a private investigator to stalk down all the members of the MPAA. Although I found it interesting that they were all super secretive about who puts those giant letters on posters that prevent kids from going to certain movies, I thought the persistent chase to catch the people on camera was overkill. It was a little creepy, especially when they showed one of the houses the people lived in. Maybe I respect people's privacy too much, but I feel like if they wanted to stay unknown to the public, the director shouldn't try to defy their wishes. Also when the private investigator told her best friend's daughter "I get a kick out of watching people who don't know I'm watching them," I felt really uncomfortable.

Creepiness aside, I agreed with some of the points the film made, and I disagreed with others. Though I declare myself a "gore-hound," I do think that the USA film rating system lets a lot more violence get by, while laying the smack down on sex. Recalling last year's ratings battle declared by the Weistein Company, I can agree with this statement the documentary made. How was it possible that a movie like Blue Valentine originally get an NC-17 rating, but Piranha 3D easily get an R? That movie had more cheap sex ploys and sexually violent acts than Blue Valentine had it in. What gave Blue Valentine the dreaded NC-17 rating was realistic sex scenes of the oral kind. However, the film did win its battle and finally got the R rating it deserved. The Weinstein Company had another ratings battle with a film that had gotten smacked with an R. This same movie in Britain got a 12A, the equivalent of our PG-13. This film was The King's Speech. Because it dropped the f-bomb more than once, it was thereby given the dreaded rated R. Now, any 13 year old knows this word, and this film didn't even use it in a super inappropriate way. There is a drastic difference in inappropriateness between The King's Speech and Piranha 3D, so why do they both share a rating? I believe the Weinstein Company's two news worthy fights will mark the revolution between film makers and the ratings their movies are given.

Now, that being said, there are some movies I feel no sympathy for getting an NC-17 rating. One they mentioned was called The Dreamers, which is a film where 3 housemates explore their sexuality during the entire film with each other. Though I have nothing against movies like this, I also don't think they should be available to people under the age of 17. These movies have very niche audiences, which mostly include very artsy students. If shown outside the art house theater, it would be very difficult to keep little 13 year old kids from sneaking into them. A film like The Dreamers would not resonate the same to an art student as to a middle schooler, and if given R status it wouldn't necessarily help its chances at the box office. But oversexed films are not the only ones I feel should be totally unavailable to those annoying little kids who get dropped off at the movie theater. Extremely violent and gory horror films like Saw 3D should not be available to these kids either. If the parent wants to take their child to this movie, that's their choice, but I don't feel movies like this should be so easily available to younger kiddies. I admit, I also have judged these parents in the past as a theater employee. That being said, when movies like American Pie get easy R ratings for exploiting teen sex, but films like The Cooler get NC-17-ed for an interesting choice of nudity, I feel there's something terribly wrong with the system. Something does need to be changed, and hopefully the Weinstein Company's quest for the right rating will spark other studios to do the same.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and My Impression on the Movie Series

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy - 3.5/5

With this summer debatably having the most sequels of all time, everyone has their own opinions on serial movies. Do they work? Are they unoriginal? Why are they so popular? For some, when a favorite movie gets slapped with the foreboding green light to sequel, teeth cringe. This even happens to movies the person didn't terribly like either. Why is Hollywood so unoriginal? Why must they continue a story they already made and finished?
One would argue that it makes Hollywood loads of money. Some big-name series that have made it to theaters with very successful (if not more) sequels like Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers create huge uproars. Why oh why do they want to make more of this "garbage"? Well, for starters both Pirates 2 and 3 are in the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time worldwide and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is number 11 domestic making almost $100 million more than its predecessor. Obviously, it pays to sequel. What's so wrong with continuing a product that will make a company more money? Apple does it all the time with their "re-inventing" of the iphone. Why can't a movie company earn back more money so they can keep in business. They're also keeping their public happy with the continuation of films that super-fans really want to see more of.

However, this not only happens in Hollywood, but happens in every country with every popular movie franchise. People complain constantly saying it's Hollywood that's not original, but alas (!!): China has their very popular Love Undercover series and The Eye trilogy, and Korea has Marrying the Mafia I through III. So it's apparent that Hollywood is not the only country who has caught on to this sneaky marketing ploy. There are also series of films that are adapted from books like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. However, those usually aren't piled in and tagged with the dreadful "movie series" logo because those were lucky enough to be series in book form prior. So my question here is what's the different between a book and a film series? They're both stories, aren't they? Then we come to your very famous series that usually aren't worth complaining about like Star Wars, The Godfather, and the new Batman series (though maybe this is where I should mention The Godfather was actually a book too before being film).

Then here comes the dreaded horror sequel. The genre that easily has the "worst" and most "gimmicky" sequels and series of them all. They create something original that excites fans everywhere and then continue to make these huge box office money-makers (percentage-wise) and spew them out fairly cheaply. Some famous series that had great success would be Saw and Final Destination. Which brings me to the super long 4 hour documentary I watched tonight, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

What this documentary showed me is that movie series are much more than what people give them credit for. At first I only found this doc interesting because they went into depth about how they make-uped, casted, and brought to life this huge film series (and mainly the first one). It was intriguing how much money they made off this series which actually molded the backbone of the production company New Line, which later on created the Oscar winning Lord of the Rings films. This series was a landmark. Although, it was the ending that really touched me. All the people that worked on it, whether it just be in one film or them all, really and truly cared about the series as a whole. Their blood, sweat, and tears went into this franchise that is now a milestone in the horror industry. You can't tell me that's not incredible. It's changed my view on the movie series and I really think people should hold their tongues before criticizing these huge money machines.

There were also some really interesting facts I learned from the documentary. Wes Craven actually got the idea of the dream-killer Freddy from a newspaper article on how a child was afraid to go back to sleep because he had a foreboding that he would die (and his fear came true). I also learned that for one of the later Freddy movies, Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) wrote a script that didn't make the cut, but forever attached him to the New Line production company. This series did incredible things for directors, actors, and producers. So then I ask my question again, why do we condemn sequels all the time?

Draquila

Draquila - L'Italia Che Trema: 3/5

The documentary Draquila plays out similarly to any Michael Moore movie would -- it is completely one sided, and the director gets directly involved with all of her questioning and only uses what will support her viewpoint. Which isn't to say this is a bad thing at all. In her documentary, Sabina Guzzanti specifically focuses on the management of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake by Berlusconi government and his staff. To be honest, if you are the slightest unaware about the politics in Italy at the moment, or are not used to documentaries that give you information so fast it makes your head spin, you'd probably need to brush up on some facts of your own before viewing this. It's completely stuffed with information starting from the first second down to the last, and what makes it harder to follow are the rapid subtitles. However, that being said, this documentary is still interesting and playful enough to hold an audience's attention.
This documentary alone will peak your interest to look more into the scandalous Berlusconi. From his insane sex scandals to his (what appears to be) lack of heart for his own country, I can only wonder how this guy has continues his reign as prime minister. I think the most impacting scene for me in this whole film was seeing walls of a shattered church post earthquake that had beautiful Sistine-Chapel-Esq painting, tarnished,ruined and forgotten. The art town of L'Aquila currently is in shambles and it appears that no one is even trying to restore it. It's a tragedy.
Overall this film was interesting. I feel like for the first time this semester I've actually leaned something about another country that I totally didn't know, rather than relearning more and more about what's been going on in the middle east within the past 5 years.

My First Post: Hanna, Bride of Re-Animator, Crossing Borders

So I suppose since this is my first blog, I will tell you a little about it :) I'm an avid movie watcher. I love all things film, which explains why I'm a film major at UNT and also work at the local movie theater. I get to see a lot of films a week, and I love talking about them, so I figured I'd start a review blog! My hope is to open up people to movies they haven't seen or ever thought of seeing, with of course the occasional blockbuster movie that hits theaters :)
The title of my blog comes from the Japanese word 映画館 ("eigakan"), which means movie theater. I chose the title not only because of my minor in Japanese, but because I have the weakest spot for Asian film.
Even though I see at least 3 films a week, there are still my off days where I don't watch anything. Possibly I will then review movies that I have seen in the past and love, or TV series that I have finished a complete season of. Whichever! Today since it's my first, I thought I'd do a trio of films I saw this past week. 1 at work, and 2 from my film classes. Enjoy!



Hanna (2011): 3.5/5
Beating out 3 of the 4 movies to release this weekend with $12.2 million, Hanna is a remarkable film with tense action sequences. However, what makes this film a step above many 2011 films so far is the remarkable characters intertwined in the intense plot.
The main character, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), is the most unique at best. She is as strong and super as any rouge-man-on-the-run I've ever seen. Hanna takes names and breaks normative child boundaries not so different from Kick Ass's Hit Girl. She's totally hero material. Not only does she beat down bad guys ever so easily, but she also speaks multiple foreign languages which makes her even more of a super awesome hero.
But Hanna is not my favorite character in this film. That award would have to go to the little girl, Sophie (Jessica Barden), who is Hanna's best friend. She's so adorable with her spunky "I'm-too-good-for-this-world" attitude and her subtle pop cultural references. Not only that, but she's an excellent supporting character who perfectly balances Hanna's rough-and-toughness.
I should also mention how the movie's music is fantastic. The Chemical Brothers made a perfect techno score that went along with every beat of the film, doing something that I feel Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy score could not do.
Usually movies of this type do not interest me. I'm not one who is super excited to sit down and watch a rouge hero run from The Big Bad American Wolf (which speaking of children stories, I loved this movie's unique parallels to Brothers Grimm fairy tales). However, I feel this movie creeps out of the cliche of these usual thrillers and creates a world all its own.



Bride of Re-Animator (1990): 2.5/5
This film was a little hard to pay attention to after a long class of lecture. The beginning and the end feel a lot more well-paced than the exhausting middle. The allusions to famous classic horror films are also easy to spot (Bride of Frankenstein being the obvious one from the title).
Some perks to watching this movie would have to be the gore. A couple of my favorite creations were five fingers with an eyeball connecting them which ran rampant around the doctors' house while a police man was interrogating them. Another hilarious creature was Dr. Hill (David Gale), a head brought back to life, who in the 3rd act of the film is able to fly because bat wings are fused to his head and creates chaos for the doctor buddies Cain (Bruce Abbott) and West (Jeffrey Combs). You can never go wrong with the non-threatening flying head. The body of the bride was also unique, showing many veins and muscle rather than skin and body, which was pretty cool for the gorehound in me.
Another perk to the film is Dr. West's quirky little one-liners ("My God...they're using tools!") which come in handy to describe the action always when needed.
All in all, I feel this film only skims the surface of funny allusions that Gremlins made use of so well.


Crossing Borders (2009): 3/5
This documentary, unlike many my teacher has shown in my International Documentary class, was light-hearted and easy to watch. It's about 4 American students, that while on their their study abroad trip to Spain travel over to Morocco and meet up another 4 Moroccan students there. I feel this film doesn't go as deep as it should with regards to how most Americans view the Islamic world, but after meeting the director post screening, I realized he only wanted to skim the surface and spark the imaginations and encourage others to go abroad and see the world for themselves, to become more cultured. This documentary does what it wants to do, and nothing more. It's essentially an advertisement of sorts for his non-profit study abroad organization.