Shark Season

We are in the middle of 2020's shark week, you know what that means, time for the shark attack movies to come out. This year you have the lovely selection of Shark Season or Deep Blue Sea 3 (which I have pre-ordered the DVD version to go with my physical collection of the other two and will discuss that one when I received it). Let's look at Shark Season produced by the wonderful people over at The Asylum and no their visual effects department have not progressed any since the last Sharknado. A photographer (Jack Pearson) is planning on doing a photo shoot on location at a remote newly formed island with his model (Paige McGarvin) and Juliana Destefano , who will be doing the makeup for the shoot. The three set out on kayak to their island on the outskirts of Florida Bay, except there is a massive great white shark, I mean its The Asylum you could not expect them to be more generic with the type of shark. Thanks to a totally phoned in, almost literally, performance by Michael Madsen, seriously he's in a room on the phone pretty much every time he is on screen. Side track on the subject of the phone, that is how I knew what movie this was going to be because early on their is a phone call between Madsen and McGarvin, where she obviously thinks she is face timing him and he obviously thinks he's just voice calling her. You see there are two kinds of these when nature attacks movie their is the large studio production such as The Shallows versus this which is made by a small company like The Asylum which I feel like they purposely try to be the worst version possible of the type of movie they want to make. Because let's see I am sorry I will not be kind on this one, the main actors are horrible, the camera cut from on location stunt kayaks to the performers up close obviously on a stage is laughable as is the cuts from b-roll shark footage to the badly bland looking CG shark. I struggled to maintain my focus to get through this movie, the script is horrible and with inexperienced actresses trying to pull off the distress and emotional weight of their situation is just comes off dull and I found myself drifting to my cell phone until the shark makes its appearance. I honestly can not think of any reason you should spend good money on renting this, it is available currently through at least VUDU and Amazon Prime with option to rent or purchase, there are plenty of other shark thrillers out there that if you want to spend money on will give you at least some edge of your seat intensity and life or death stakes for the characters where these girls I felt myself wanting the shark to finally get its meal.

The Pool

     A man in a pool with a damsel in distress, a dog on a leash and a crocodile. The Pool is a movie from Thailand that came out in 2018, yes, that means it is in Thai and you have to read subtitles if you want to watch this. No spoilers if you look below at the poster or google the trailer, everything I mentioned is there, I won't spoil how the two of them get into the pool, well, three if you count the crocodile. Regardless the two find themselves trapped at the bottom of a ridiculously deep diving pool that has a huge design flaw of no built in ladders, the "6" on the poster if you can't read the foreign language that part translates to 6 meters or almost 20 feet, however the pool does feature a nicely sized drainage system. Unable to scale the massive tile walls things get worse when a crocodile slips into the pool and conveniently likes to lay in the worst possible locations when things need to get done. Adding to the tension of trying to save his girlfriend from their predicament is that his dog is chained above the pool. 
     I wandered upon this movie by being in my new state of wanting to watch more survival movies wandering over to see what Shudder had available and this popped up, figured sure why not lets try it. It has your survival aspects of making poor decisions, instant reacting instead of thinking decisions through and what the poster does not show you is how CG the crocodile actually is. The premise is different, being trapped in a man made location versus on a mountain or in a cave, there are a couple times I had to look away at injuries that are incurred when trying escape the confines of this tiled cell. Outside of the crocodile needing a little more finesse it has a realistic feel and as the days go on the characters and the environment so deterioration well. My main problem with the movie outside of the crocodile look is there is a story element put into play with the couple that feels placed for dramatic tension and to heighten their emotions of being trapped together and up the stakes for survival, however I just did not care about that at all the way I think the filmmakers intended it to. If your into survival horror, enjoy watching people trapped in unforgiving locations or just enjoy anything that they toss a crocodile into then you might have a nice evening at home streaming this. I wouldn't have suggested back in 2018 to see this in theaters most likely, it does work on a streaming platform like Shudder perfectly. 

Yes, God, Yes

You may recognize the lead actress, Natalia Dyer from her role as Nancy Wheeler in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Here she is a teenager in the early 2000’s which is pretty clear thanks to the wonderful trip down memory lane of the AOL system and chat rooms. Dyer’s character of Alice attends a catholic school and decides to go on a catholic retreat with the school in the midst of her discovering sexuality. That is it pretty much in a nutshell seeing her awkwardly and unnerving at times experiencing things for the first time while witnessing it is not just herself that has these feelings that everyone is saying will send you to hell. Dyer fits the role perfectly with her almost mousy youthful appearance and portrays nervousness through he facial expressions. There were times that I did feel uncomfortable as this is a not intimate, but, close look at a girl discovering self sexual stimulation. This is a movie that will definitely not be for everyone, those with daughters at that age of discovery or even actual girls going through the process of sexual awareness will probably get some underlying take away from this, it could also go the opposite way depending on your family or religious belief structure and create a bigger divide on beliefs. 

Black Water: Abyss

There is one genre that I have a guilty pleasure for that I will always watch whatever comes out regardless and that is survival horror, specifically when its nature related. In 2007 a movie came out called Black Water about a group that gets terrorized by a crocodile in the mangrove swamps of Australia. Now we get the next movie in the line up, much like the follow up movies to Open Water and 43 Meters Down this one has nothing to do with the original movie except for the environment and/or creature trying to kill them. In this case its a crocodile again, this time a group of five are going to explore an unknown cave, yup, did not tell anyone they were going. When torrential rains they thought were not going to affect them hit the area while they are in the cave system it begins to flood the cave and force of the water pushes rocks across their only exit point. Finding themselves trapped underground in an unknown cave with the water steadily rising, oh and there is a killer crocodile in the water that has nothing better to do than wait until they get in its territory. Much like the other examples I referenced this one is no where near as good as the first one, I actually liked Black Water quite a bit because it was outdoors with most of it happening in daylight which this one goes the usual route going for dark and confined areas with the ability to try to unsettle you by having a flashlight shine across the creature hunting them. Black Water also took place in the mangrove trees along a river in Australia, lot of these movies take place in Australia lately, anyways it works well with my mangrove logo. This was at from being the best and no where near the worst that I have seen, I recently watched Outback that is pretty up there in terms of the worst, a lot of my ranking for this would be the amount of times characters make stupid choices. I don’t think this is worth the price of rental or purchase, though if it wanders onto a streaming platform you subscribe to an also find guilty pleasure as I do in watching people in situations far worse than your in then I’d say go ahead click on it a night you have a little bit of time to waste and don’t want to watch something taxing on the brain. Now to get ready for Deep Blue Sea 3 and yes it is a real thing.

AAR - Eyes Wide Shut

After Action Report

Date: 08/03/2020

Title: Eyes Wide Shut

Location: Enzian Theater

It has been around twenty years since I last saw Eyes Wide Shut which was back in 1999 when it came out. I remember going to the theater back then to see this and it was for the same reason I think many guys went because Nicole Kidman gets naked and there’s a secret sex cult in the film. That is what I recall remembering about the film and now revisiting it at Enzian during their Stanley Kubrick week is yup it has a lot of nudity in it though this time around decades have passed and with time now able to see beyond it just being about naked women. How Tom Cruise reacts to Nicole Kidman’s story of the navy man at the hotel and how she talks about the way women are seen by many men. Kubrick brings a stylizing and gravitas to the film that heightens the film to keep it from being in the “skinamax” lineup of straight to cable soft porn titles. Also at 159 minutes it is a rather long movie if your just looking for some exposed women, what was I thinking when I was younger? It is very long though it never feels weighted down or sluggish as slowly more and more is unraveled, though one of the audience members when we were leaving told his friend that it was so long he felt that it was Christmas time by now. I would say though it still is not one of my favorite Kubrick films, I am sure if I had the time to sit through it a half dozen more times to pick up on little nuisances and themes  it may elevate it. I think it’s a movie that many going into long term relationships or have been in should experience together to understand how the other may be feeling or how one slip can come back around later to do more damage.

Relic

Relic is the feature film debut of director Natalie Erika James, and she comes out of the gate with a phenomenal horror thriller. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote are a mother and daughter, respectively, who venture out to check on their mother/grandmother played by Robyn Nevin. When the two arrive at the house they notice its resident is missing and some eerie things happen little by little. This film does great in the beginning, building suspense of what is happening in this house and developing characters that are interesting and connected to the point you care what is happening to them. Bella Heathcote learns about a neighboring child who found themselves locked in a room in the house for several hours and later finds herself in the same room. That is when things get good or deteriorate depending on the viewer. If you are expecting the house to be alive or some scary monster to crawl out of the shadows, you’ll still be waiting as this movie goes into a much more psychological horror tone. Robyn Nevin gives a stellar performance as this aging mother/grandmother who can be sane and conversational then switch gears to go ranting mad as this character is the key to the whole movie which plays into Dementia and the effects it has on an individual and their loved ones. My main gripes with this movie is that it feels shot too dark during some scenes and trying to see what is occurring or trying to read some post-it notes around the house can be difficult and the other is when the film gets into what the house is capable of it almost seems to adapt conveniently to the situations it needs to for the film to get from A-B though I could get past that because of the investment early on with the development of the characters. The ending is one of the most cringeworthy yet impactful moments of cinema I have seen this year. If you buy a ticket or streaming access expecting for what it is more of a psychological horror movie than creature horror, which I can see from the trailer how that might assumption may happen, then I think you're in for a suspenseful unnerving night at the movies. B.

Future home of The Mangrove

Even though I have gone back to my full-time retail day job, I still find myself with quite the free time, before all this craziness happened I was going out to movies or plays at least three days a week which now I see how much time that was taking. For the past few years I have worked on my film watching skills, on and off blogging reviews, and recently just started thinking about what do I want to do with the next half of my life and incorporating what I love from the past few years. One of the few theaters that have opened in the area where I live is a one screen art house that has been around since the 80s and is nestled in between large oaks trees and just has an inviting quality to it and a sense of community. I take about an hour to drive out to this theater and since going it has made me question, why is there not something like this closer to where I live and you don’t see single screen art houses that have that kind of atmosphere to them being built. That is half of what I discovered is that want to open a theater that has that aesthetic to it, then came branding which has eluded me the past few years. Over the years one thing I have always struggled with is finding an identity and a branding that I am comfortable with, the piece I always circle back to is being a native Floridian and incorporating that into what I want to do. That popped into my head was going with using Cypress as part of the name for the large Cypress trees that grow along the lakes and swamps, it is also a name that residents are familiar with because of many places using it in their name which makes it identifiable. My problem started with logo and branding, do you know how hard it is to find a Cypress tree that looks like one and not overly detailed to reproduce, because the theater I was speaking about is named after a mountain flower, my head already had I wanted a tree to be part of the concept early on. Nixing Cypress, I began going through identifying foliage of Florida, which led me to now wanting to do obvious like Palm or Azalea then thinking about things I recalled back to high school where I loved a Marine Science class I took for a few years thinking of the activities and places we visited it came to me Mangrove trees. Scouring the net I could find and tweak a little for colors what is the current logo, though I envision something very similar yet different as the final logo down the road. I started thinking of what can I do with Mangrove trees, what will make this something I believe in, what are Mangroves in their environment, they are homes to communities of animals, they provide protection from storms for marine life and they help stop erosion. That fit with what I envision, a theater that has a sense of community among its patrons, a place where people can feel safe going and where roots can grow to keep it growing. I figured out what I want to do, a purpose and then it is on to fine tuning what can become of this, early on I knew what I want to start working to is a small theater, an art house, looking up names of art houses online across the country, I decided theater was not going to be a main player in the brand, I didn’t want locked into a theater with people thinking it was a traditional theater from the name I want a communal feel and welcome conversations before and after shows. I liked cinema giving it the air that its not just movies, its about the art that is film and the experience, Mangrove Cinema is the company I have settled on starting where I want to create online content, I want to open my theater called The Mangrove and I want to be active in the community which leads to the next part of the puzzle. What will make my theater unique and that will be by showcasing products from Florida and putting part of the proceeds to Florida ecological and wildlife programs. I have a vision that over time I will probably be sharing of visually how this will all look and will give me more material for posts and don’t want to give everything away on day one. There of course is a long way to go before ground can even be thought of being broken, first I want to get past this COVID-19 nonsense, there is money to be raised, locations to be scouted, and biggest of all learning how a theater functions. Until then I am working on building brand and building a name and image for myself. Starting with my review blog here becoming Mangrove Film Talk where I hope to discuss topics other than reviews which will also be a sister site to my YouTube channel of the same name that I plan to start once my home theater room is complete, that is for another day and another post.