The Happening

Release date: 11 June 2008 (Bahrain)

Suffer poor M. Night Shyamalan, who despite trying has not yet been able to give us anything like the great twisty stories in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. But like the Energizer Bunny, this overrated director continues to deliver films with the look and to a lesser extent ‘feel’ of these two gems but without their catch-you-off-guard turns. In this one Mark Wahlberg stars as teacher Elliot Moore who with his wife and ragtag collection of others flees over hill and dale towards Harrisburg, staying just ahead of the wind in the willows. And why are we worrying about the wind? Well, seems plants and trees are eking out their revenge on Americans by infecting them so they want to commit suicide just as quickly as possible (rolls eyes). This – ok, let’s say it – dumb movie has nothing happening.

My rating, just to keep my orchid happy and from doing me in, 3 out of 10.

Normal

Release date: 2007 (Toronto International Film Festival)

(Yawn) This Canadian effort did nothing for me. Directed by Carl Bessai, it takes a sort-of Babel approach giving us three grouped stories that eventually reveal a traffic accident as their connection. Carrie-Anne Moss stars as Catherine, the mother trying desperately to deal with the death of her son in the traffic accident, while her youngest son and husband roam about. Kevin Zeggers stars as Jordie, the paroled lad who had a hand in the accident and Callum Keith Rennie as Walt Braugher, a college teacher with an autistic brother and a love for co-eds, and some connection to the accident. These folks are all trying to be normal, or find normality post-crash. Shot in too many tight frames and with no real connection to any of the characters, the film flounders in its bleak, depressing, and woeful self-indulgence.

It’s abnormal and earns my rating of 2 out of 10.

The Grudge 3

Release date: 12 May 2009 (USA)

Toby Wilkins directs this middling thriller originally conceived by Takashi Shimizu. As is wont with American adaptations of Japanese movies, the fact Americans cannot understand the subtlety of Japan nor its culture, turns these flicks into very basic horrors. They are all style no substance unlike the original which had both style and a depth of substance that was, in itself, hororific. In this latest version, set in a Chicago apartment complex, our creepy little lad returns as a precursor to the arrival of the evil spirit Kayako. Meanwhile Kayako's sister Naoko (Emi Ikehata) heads to Chicago to put an end to the curse once and for all. There she meets Lisa (Johanna Brady), her brother Max (Gil McKinney) and their wee charge, the sickly Rose (Jadie Hobson). Let's just it all ends, um, predictably with plenty of room - sadly - for Grudge 4.

Well filmed in the spirit of the original but poorly acted (Ikehata, aside), Grudge 3 gets my rating of 5 out of 10.

This Is It

Release date: 28 October 2009

Director Kenny Ortega took the hours and hours of film of Michael Jackson preparing for his never-to-be London tour and distills it down to give us a but a glimpse of what may have been Michael’s grand return to King of Popdom. While hindered by its fawning start showing Michael’s dancers ooohhing and aahhhing about Michael, the film does justice to Jackson’s preparations and reveals him to be on top of his game – both physically and vocally – at 50. It demonstrated to this reviewer that despite the media’s panache to portray Michael as a total wonk, when it came to his music, he was a perfectionist and a master in conveying what he wanted us, his fans and audience, to see. It is difficult to rate this film as surely as it was difficult for Mr. Ortega to construct a sense of a concert we’ll never see. Yet despite it all, Michael, his dancing, and his music shine. This Is It is a perfect, if hurried, testament to the world’s greatest pop star. Taken too soon.

My rating 9 out of 10.

Gothika

Release date: 13 November 2003 (USA)

A gothic ghost story set in an insane asylum. The tables are turned when the asylum’s chief psychiatrist, Dr. Miranda Grey (a pre-Monster Halle Berry) sees a ghost on a rainy drive home one night and finds herself a patient in her own asylum. Among the patients, Grey struggles to recount her meeting with the ghost and what message it was trying to convey. Along the way, a dreadful story of kidnapped women brutalized forms with her husband (Charles Dutton) and the local sheriff (John Carroll Lynch) implicated. With the help of fellow patient Chloe, a perfect Penelope Cruz, and Dr. Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr) Miranda unlocks the true story and faces her own brutal act. Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, Gothika is a good movie with enough thrills among its twists and turns to make it worth watching.

My rating 7 out of 10.

Halloween

Release date: 25 October 1978 (USA)

Way back in 1978 director John Carpenter reinvented the slasher movie with ‘scream queen’ Jamie Lee Curtis starring as Laurie Strode. Donald Pleasence co-stars as Dr. Sam Loomis, the psychiatrist on a mission, searching in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois for his patient, the newly released Michael Myers, who 15 years earlier – as a 6 year old – murdered his sister. Halloween started the genre of the boogeyman-that-never-dies film and is as suspenseful today as ever. Carpenter’s iconic music only adds to the horror and despite its dreadful acting and low budget feel, continues to freak the hell out of any viewer. A perfect movie for Halloween.

My rating 8 out of 10.

Les temoins (aka The Witnesses)

Release date: 12 February 2007 (Berlin International Film Festival)

Directed by André Téchiné, this wonderful film recounts a year in the life of a small group of friends in 1984 France as the spectre of a new disease appears. When a doctor, Adrien (the very fine Michel Blanc) meets Manu (Johan Libereau), a gay lad from the country living in a brothel with his opera singing sister, and is in turn introduced to Adrien’s good friends – a married couple, Sarah (Emmanuelle Berat) and Medhi (Sami Bouajila) – a gorgeous, perfectly played story of love and loss and regret results. At the couple’s summer cottage, Medhi saves Manu from drowning and from that single act a slow love affair evolves that engulfs the foursome. Told in voiceover after the death of Manu by Medhi’s wife, Sarah, Les temoins draws beautifully real portraits of four carefree souls caught as witnesses at the beginning of a tragedy that still haunts millions of people today. Finer than Philadelphia by a long shot, this film adds a grace, dignity and honesty to what we now know as the AIDS epidemic.

My rating 8 out of 10.

X-Files: I Want To Believe

Release date: 30 July 2008 (London, UK Premier)

Chris Carter, the longtime creative force behind the mega-hit television series, directs this – essentially – 1:40 long television episode that reunites Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). The plot is a odd construct involving the disappearance of an FBI agent (hence the need to bring Mulder back into the fold, so to speak), a priest with visions and a pedophilic background (hence the ‘X’-factor and reason for holier-than-thou Scully to get all worked up) and Russians gruesomely harvesting Marylanders for organs (which just is like, huh?). Anyway, it all unfolds with predictability and even as a diehard X-File fan, and with a nod to the subtle tongue-in-cheek humour, it’s just way too schmaltzy and not worth the effort. The fault, I think, of bringing a franchise back far too long after its shelf life had expired. This film certainly gets my X.

My rating 3 out of 10.