And Yet 6 More Reviews Of 6 More Films Lisa Saw in 2014: Art and Craft, The Book of Life, The Box Trolls, The Quiet Ones, and Vampire Academy

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Art and Craft (dir by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman)

Art and Craft is a fascinating documentary about a fascinating human being. As quickly becomes obvious, Mark A. Landis suffers from any number of mental illnesses. However, he’s also one of the most successful art forgers in history. While his own artwork is undistinguished, Landis is capable of perfectly imitating the work of other artists. For 30 years, Landis would forge the work of other artists and then donate the forged paintings to museums across America. (Since Landis never made any money off of his scam, he never technically broke any laws.) The documentary follows Landis as he prepares for a show of his work and it features revealing interviews with both him and the people he fooled. Ultimately, this is a film that — much like Exit Through The Gift Shop — forces us to consider just what exactly makes something a work of art. Is it the name of the artist or is it the work itself?

The Book of Life (dir by Jorge Gutierrez)

The animated film The Book of Life was released in October and, for whatever reason, it never seemed to become quite the hit that a lot of us were expecting it to be. However, even if I don’t think it came anywhere close to reaching the heights of producer Guillermo Del Toro’s best films, I still rather liked it.

The film tells the tale of Manolo (voiced by Diego Luna) who is tricked, by Xibalba (voiced by Ron Pearlman), the ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, into believing that the love of his life, Maria (Zoe Saldana), has died. Eager to see her again, Manolo allows himself to be bitten by a snake, which kills him. Now trapped in the spirit world, Manolo has to find a way to return to life and be reunited with Maria.

The Book of Life is a gorgeously animated film that pays wonderful tribute to the culture and mythology of Mexico. And it’s great for los niños!

The Boxtrolls (dir by Graham Annabelle and Anthony Stacchi)

The Book of Life was not the only animated film to not quite get the respect that it deserved in 2014. The Boxtrolls was another perfectly charming film and, considering its dual message of tolerance and not giving into paranoia, one that more people should have seen.

Taking place in a town that’s full of stupid people who are obsessed with cheese, The Boxtrolls is a memorably dark little film from the same studio that gave us Paranorman. The citizens of the town live in fear of the Boxtrolls, a group of creatures who live underneath the city. Little do they understand that the Boxtrolls are actually peaceful and the only reason that they come out at night is to scavenge through trash. The citizens of the town hire the evil Snatcher to take care of the Boxtrolls and, because of their paranoia and fear, they are soon literally slaves to the whims of Snatcher.

(Insert your own NSA surveillance analogy here.)

The Boxtrolls is a memorably subversive little film, one that makes the argument that even the ugliest of animated monsters still deserve a chance to find happiness.

Dolphin Tale 2 (dir by Charles Martin Smith)

So, as some of you may remember, I absolutely loved the first Dolphin Tale. The sequel is not quite as good as the first film but you know what? I saw it with my niece and she absolutely loved it and I loved watching it with her and yes, the film totally made me cry. So, as far as I’m concerned, the film succeeded. Winter the Dolphin appears as himself and he’s joined by Hope the Dolphin. And both Winter and Hope give Oscar-worthy performances.

The Quiet Ones (dir by John Pogue)

Want to hear something sad? The Quiet Ones, which is probably one of the most forgettable films to be released last year, was produced by Hammer Studios. That’s right — the legendary British studio that produced such immortal films as Horror of Dracula — also produced The Quiet Ones, a film that could have just as easily been made by …. well, by anyone.

Borrowing multiple pages from The Conjuring, The Quiet Ones takes place in the 70s, is “based on a true story,” and features a creepy doll! Jared Harris plays a psychiatrist who wants to prove that ghosts do not exist and that poltergeist activity is the result of telekinesis. In order to prove his theory, he and his forgettable students isolate an orphan named Jane (Olivia Cooke) and go out of their way to upset her, hoping that she’ll lash out at them with her telekinetic abilities. Apparently, nobody in this movie has ever watched a movie before or else they would have understood why this was a bad idea.

Anyway, The Quiet Ones feels like about a hundred other recent horror films, right down to having Sam Claflin play a student with a camera who records the entire experience. Jared Harris is well-cast and Olivia Cooke proves that she deserves a better film but otherwise, The Quiet Ones is forgettable.

Vampire Academy (dir by Mark Waters)

Speaking of being forgettable…

Actually, Vampire Academy is not as bad as a lot of critics said. It was one of the many YA adaptations that were released in 2014. It deals with a bunch of teenage vampires who are attending St. Vladimer’s Academy. When the film tries to be Twilight, it’s boring. When the film tries to Mean Girls, it’s a lot more tolerable. Best of all, one of the main characters is named Lissa and I like any film that features a Lisa.

But, otherwise, Vampire Academy was pretty forgettable.

Triple Quickie Reviews: Quarantine 2: Terminal, Devil’s Playground, and Attack the Block

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Arleigh

Quarantine 2: Terminal is the 2011 horror sequel to 2008’s Quarantine which was a remake of the much better Spanish horror film [Rec]. This sequel goes off on it’s own different path instead of just remaking the sequel which followed the Spanish film. As directed by John Pogue this sequel dumps the “found footage” style of the first film and instead just goes for a traditional film style. The film also goes it’s own way in explaining how it ties into the previous film.

Where the Spanish sequel had it’s events set at the same place this time around we find our new cast of characters on-board a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Nashville that soon gets diverted to Las Vegas when one of the passengers suddenly becomes violently ill. Once they land the film mirrors the first film in that the surviving passengers, crew and a lone airport maintenance crewmember get locked in the terminal they’re at. The very bio-weapon that was unwittingly unleashed in the apartment complex in the first film has made it onto the flight and one by one the cast succumbs to it’s “rage zombie”-like symptoms.

Quarantine 2 is not an awful as some would like to tell people, but it is also not a good film. It’s pretty average with little to no tension or scary surprises. It’s a horror film almost done by check-list. We also don’t get fully realized individuals to root for so that when one becomes infected there’s no sense of loss. In fact, there’s not even a character to root against. That’s how bland the characters ended being in this film. The story itself has built on the details presented about the virus in the first film and it’s an interesting premise that deserved a better film. Maybe a couple years from now the series will get rebooted and remade Bollywood-style and get some energy into it.

Moving onto a much better film that also share’s the above film’s fast-moving “zombie”-like infected is 2010’s Devil’s Playground by British horror filmmaker Mark McQueen. It is set in present-day London where it begins in medias res a hard-looking man all bloodied going by the name of Cole (played by Craig Fairbass) who uses a computer’s webcam to record the events which has transpired to bring him to his current state.

We soon go back to the beginning of the crisis which starts from the human-testing of a new drug by the pharmaceutical company N-Gen. Of the 30,000 test-subjects only one doesn’t succumb to the deadly side-effects of the drug which causes those injected to transform into ravening, cannibalistic killers who also happen to have had their agility amplified that they’re able to parkour their way towards the uninfected.

Yes, you heard right, parkour zombies. That gimmick alone attached to the current trend of fast-moving zombies gives this film an edge over most fast-running zombie films.

Devil’s Playground doesn’t just try to make things interesting with a new brand of zombie-infected killers, but manages to create a story around the usual “man on a mission” plot. Cole has to find the only test subject who didn’t succumb to the experimental drug’s side-effects in hopes that this person carries the means to help end the spread of the virus. The cast itself helps in making this horror film rise above the usual dreck that gets released on video. While I’ve never been a fan of British “tough guy” actor Danny Dyer he wasn’t as annoying in this film as he is in others and it’s due to the performance by Craig Fairbass as the hardened mercenary Cole which makes Dyer’s dishonored cop Joe from chewing everything in the scene he appears in.

Director Mark McQueen does a good job in keeping the story moving forward even as he juggles subplot involving a couple of London river cops trying to find a safe haven in a city that’s going through a deadly crisis of apocalyptic proportion. Even the free-running zombies don’t come across as laughable and at times even come across as quite horrifying when Cole and his small band of survivors try to move from haven to haven in the hopes of getting the one who may be the key to solving the crisis to the right people.

Devil’s Playground may not join the ranks of the classic zombie films since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead changed the world of horror in 1968, but it manages to be both entertaining and scary despite the parkour zombies.

The best of this triple-bill of horror comes courtesy of one of 2011’s festival darlings. Attack the Block by writer-director Joe Cornish was able mash together scifi, horror and comedy and do so seemlessly. It’s a genre-busting film that doesn’t lean too heavily on either three but allows the great script written by Cornish to dictate when the horror begins and when it transitions to some sharp comedic scenes and dialogue.

This is a film that could’ve sunk under the weight of it’s cast of British teen and child actors, but instead gains much of it’s appeal from these fresh, young faces. Even for those across the Atlantic in the US the British slang used by the kids in the film doesn’t confuse as much as it could. The writing and performances by these kids (especially by John Boyega as the teen gang leader Moses) don’t come across as forced, but flow naturally from scene to scene. Their reactions to finding and killing what turns out to be an alien looks and sound exactly how any group of young hoodlums and ragamuffins would have. In fact, some of the film’s funnier scenes was due to how each of them arm themselves in their attempt to protect the block of apartments they all live in.

It wouldn’t be an alien invasion film of any quality if we didn’t get some memorable aliens. Fortunately we do get aliens that come across not just menacing, but also not fake looking. Nothing takes an audience away from suspending their disbelief and enjoying a film than a badly pulled off visual effect. Cornish and his effects crew use a combination of practical and CG effects to bring to life a horde of alien invaders who look like a cross between apes and the ball of fur and teeth from the 80’s cheesetastic scifi-horror film series Critters.

Attack the Block doesn’t skimp on the death and destruction. The film doesn’t treat the young characters with kid’s gloves either as they’re not exempt from the mortal danger posed by the aliens who have invaded their Block. The fact that each character (both young and old) were written to be rounded characters with distinct personalities that we feel each death no matter how minor the role. It’s a rare horror film that actually made great use of character development in-between scenes of action and terror. Even during those particular scenes each character on the screen adds a new layer of complexity to the role. This is a testament to director Joe Cornish who also wrote the excellent screenplay. The fact that this was his feature film debut as a director also makes Attack the Block such a surprise wonder.