The Fall

The Fall
USA (2006)
Starring:  Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell
Awards: 2007 Best Film - Sitges Catalonian Int'l. Film Festival; 2007 Crystal Bear Special Mention - Berlin Int'l. Film Festival; 2008 Best Cinematography - Austin Film Critics Association

This movie dubbed a fantasy and adventure begins in a hospital.  In this hospital there are two characters thrust together by chance.  A stunt man with a shattered heart and broken leg and a girl who fell and broke her arm.

Roy befriends Alexandria and begins telling her a story of six heroes who each desire to kill the same man.  As the story carries on Roy cons this young child into acquiring medicine for him for his pain.  As the story unfolds the viewer begins to understand that medicine will not cure Roy's particular situation.

I decided to watch this movie because I wanted to continue a recent run on fantasy movies.  This was far from anything upbeat and was truly sad the way the story unfolds.  For those of you who are looking for a fantasy adventure I would look on - the lack of action throughout and the morbid twists will leaving you wishing you picked another movie.  For those of you interested in fantasy movie with a dark/depressing motive well you can find it on Netflix.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Chronicles of Narnia:  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
USA (2010)
Starring:  Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley

Based on a series of books I haven't read since I was about five, I found this installment of C. S. Lewis's books to be what I expected.  The details of the story I had long forgotten so most of the movie was not as familiar as you might expect of someone who had read the book.  It seems like there are some occurrences that weren't in the book and of course many that were in the book that weren't in the movie.  Still, all in all, I was pleasantly surprised by what I watched.  If I was my little brother's age I would have loved this movie, I am sure.

While the classics aren't represented in their entirety I am enjoying the surge of movies written with a classic literature or historic background that have been coming out in the past 10 years.  This one especially so.  For everyone who can remember being a kid and reading this book by flashlight or candlelight long after you should have been asleep I thoroughly recommend allowing this movie to take you back to the times when magical things were possible in your mind.

Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch
USA (2011)
Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy

Season of the Witch enticed me for a few different reasons.  First it deals with Templars whom I considered a mystical bunch that were nearly the stuff of fairy tales.  Second because it involves witches, which are the stuff of fairy tales.  And third, unlike many, I like Nicolas Cage as an actor.

The film didn't disappoint me.  I wasn't expecting a whole lot and as such I wasn't quite wowed nor left feeling like I had wasted an hour and a half.

Dominic Sena shot this film in Austria to give it a good backdrop.  I give him props on that move.  There are some really cool scenes that would have been quite a bit different if he had filmed it anywhere else.  The acting was okay and the plot was the stuff of fairy tales.  The scenes were set well which only helped form the shell for this story to be told.  I wouldn't call it one of Nicolas Cage's best movies, but a good one in his line of movies and it did what it was supposed to:  entertain.

The Experiment

The Expirement
USA (2010)
Starring:  Adrien Brody, Cam Gigandet, Forest Whitaker

For years I've heard of this story about a sociology experiment where a class was divided and half became prisoners and half became guards.  Over the past two or three decades a few have said it was their class and a couple people knew someone who was in the class.  Once I heard the story a few times I kind of wrote all first hand recollections off much the way you would if someone told you they witnessed the Roswell incident.  None the less I had to watch the movie.

The movie ended up as I would have expected.  There weren't very many surprises.  Either there really was a sociology experiment and this movie is based off of it or this movie is based off the fictitious legend someone created.  All in all there was some action, a shocking scene or two that makes you think about what it really takes to manipulate a person or a group of people.

Ninja's Creed

Ninja's Creed aka Royal Kill
USA (2009)
Starring:  Alexander Wraith, Gail Kim, and Lalaine

I'm not even going to go through the trouble of finding a trailer and embedding it.  While there was a reason to watch Alien vs Ninja, I can think of no reason to watch this movie.

Ninja's Creed started out with some amazing scenery and I thought to myself, "maybe all of the other critics are wrong and it's just an under appreciated movie."  Nope. . . I don't even know how this movie received funding.

Daybreakers

DayBreakers
USA
2009
Starring:  Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill

Daybreakers is a modern day vampire movie.  Some of the concepts it tackles and the way the movie is presented it is not your average teen vampire flick.  This movie touches on global catastrophe, greed, corruption at the highest level, extremely twisted population control methodologies, and then of course vampires creating some action.

Daybreaks starts out by describing what the human race went through and how vampires rose to power.  With their food supply dwindling and having farmed nearly all the humans left in existence the vampire race is facing a widespread change coupled with near extinction after a decade or two in complete power.  The surviving groups of humans aren't about to give in without a fight.

All in all the movie was pretty cool.  The story was unique and the effects were fairly decent.  I would recommend this one for vampire movie lovers.

Quote: "Living in a world where vampires are the dominant species is about as safe as barebacking a $5 whore."