What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: Friday the 13th (dir. by Marcus Nispel)

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, Jeff and I watched the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th.

Why Was I Watching It?

For the past two weeks, I’ve been reviewing the 12 films that make up the Friday the 13th franchise. This is the last installment so far and, appropriately enough, I’m reviewing it on Friday the 13th. (No, that’s not just a coincidence.)

What’s It About?

It’s a reboot! That’s right — forget about every other Friday the 13th film because, apparently, they never happened. Instead of trying to figure out some new gimmick to try to get audiences to watch Jason Voorhees kill yet more teenagers, producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nisepl have simply gone back to the beginning and started all over again. (I think I saw something similar in an episode of Futurama once.)

Basically, this is the first four films all rolled into one. The film starts with a young Jason Voorhees watching as his murderous mother (Nana Visitor) gets beheaded by a camp counselor. 30 years later, Jason (now played by Derek Mears) is living in the woods around Camp Crystal Lake. A bunch of obnoxious campers come up to the Lake because they’re looking for a marijuana crop and Jason, being the culture warrior that he is, responds by killing all of them except for Whitney (played by Amanda Righetti), who he just kidnaps.

A month later, Whitney’s brother Clay (Jared Padalecki) arrives at Crystal Lake to search for his sister. Upon arriving, he runs into yet another group of obnoxious campers who have decided to take a vacation up at Crystal Lake. Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) agrees to help Clay look for Whitney and while the two of them are off searching, Jason shows up and starts killing everyone else.

What Worked?

One reason that I’m using the What Lisa Watched Last Night format to review this film is because, to a large extent, it’s pointless to get all nitpicky while reviewing a film like the reboot of Friday the 13th. This is not a film you watch because you’re looking to see something that’s going to redefine cinema. This is a film you watch so that you can scream, laugh, and grab your boyfriend. And, on all those fronts, Friday the 13th succeeds well enough. Director Marcus Nispel obviously understands the slasher genre and he provides everything that we’ve come to expect from a film like this.

Also, I have to admit, I always scream at the end of the film even though I know what’s going to happen.

The victims are all very disposable and forgettable but Aaron Yoo is funny as the token stoner.

What Did Not Work?

With this film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Conan The Barbarian, Nispel shows that while he may understand how to make a genre film, he also doesn’t seem to be capable of adding anything new to them. This isn’t a problem if you’re just looking to be entertained but, for true fans of the original films that have been rebooted by Nispel and producer Michael Bay, it’s hard not to wonder just why exactly these franchises needed a reboot as opposed to a sequel. Watching a film like Friday the 13th reboot, it’s hard not to feel as if the filmmakers simply gave up trying to bring anything new to the equation and instead rather cynically decided to just capitalize on the earlier work of filmmakers who, as opposed to Nispel and Bay, aren’t in the current mainstream of the Hollywood establishment.

The main difference between a reboot like Friday the 13th and the original films in the franchise is that the reboot cost a lot more to make. It’s a lot slicker (and therefore, you never really buy into the reality of the horror) and, with a few exceptions like Aaron Yoo, it’s full of bland actors who are recognizable from TV and who seem to be going out of their way to “act like characters in a slasher film” as opposed to at least trying to give actual performances. It almost feels as if Nispel, Bay, and the cast are specifically going out of their way to wink at us and tell us, “We’re so much better than the movie that you just paid money to see.” It feels incredibly condescending.

The film’s attempt to shoehorn the original first four films of the franchise into one 97 minute movie results in a film that often feels rather rushed.

“OMG! Just Like Me!” Moments

Oh, a lot. I would be so dead if I ever wandered into a slasher film.

Lessons Learned

From rewatching the entire Friday the 13th franchise, I learned several lessons: Don’t have premarital sex (or probably not even marital sex for that matter, Jason has got some issues), don’t drink beer, don’t smoke weed, don’t snort cocaine, don’t skinny dip, don’t go commando, don’t go in the wood, don’t go camping, don’t walking into a dark room, don’t say, “Is there anyone here?,” don’t shower, don’t sleep in abandoned cabins, don’t help out strangers, don’t hitchhike, don’t flirt, and … well, don’t do anything and you should be just fine.

However, what fun would that be?

Well, this concludes my series on the Friday the 13th franchise. I’ll be posting a few final thoughts on the franchise as a whole later tonight or on Sunday but for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these reviews as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. Stay supple and don’t go wandering around in the dark. Happy Friday the 13th!

Trailer: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Official Theatrical)

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Arleigh

OK, this latest trailer for Michael Bay’s third entry in the Transformers film franchise looks to try and ask forgiveness from it’s fans about what had transpired with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (cough, cough…Twins). This latest trailer looks to mine the current alien invasion trend happening in Hollywood for the last year or two.

I’m not going to say that Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be in the running for Best Picture, Best Screenplay or even Best Acting awards come awards season, but I do get a feeling from this trailer that this third entry will be darker and infinitely more fun and watchable than the second film. I actually think that Dark of the Moon is the true first sequel to the first film and that Revenge of the Fallen never occurred.

The look of Shockwave (one red-eye) is pretty awesome as are the look of the invading Decepticons (or are they another faction). I remember talk of Unicron (the giant planet transformer) was to appear in this film but I’m not sure if Unicron will appear as a planet or that giant snake-like transformer that was giving that Chicago high-rise a major case of the hugs.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is set for a July 1, 2011 release date.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Super Bowl TV Spot)

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Arleigh

I think most everyone will admit that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wasn’t very good and to some people it was just one piece of turd. Even Michael Bay himself has admitted that the first sequel just tried to do too much without any sort of plan on how to pull it off.

Now, we have the third film and what looks like, at least from the trailer, may be a tad better. There seems to be more focus on the transformers themselves and the two sides fighting it out with lots of human collateral damage.

I sure hope this third film is not going to be like the second and more like the first but this time with invasion to make it more epic. The film comes out on July 1, 2011.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Teaser Trailer)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Arleigh

Well, what is there to say about the Transformers franchise other than it is what it is. A special-effects heavy flick about a Hasbro toyline from the 80’s that has become a sensation (a good first film with a sub-par follow-up) that’s made millions worldwide. The fact that Michael Bay (who I tend to believe as only a step above Uwe Boll in his talent as a filmmaker) is the filmmaker in charge of the franchise almost guarantees that each film will be a hit no matter what critics say.

Now we have the third film in the series with the very Pink Floyd-ish title which I am sure Pink Floyd fans are none to happy about. The film is deep into its film schedule and the fact that there’s now a teaser trailer with still 7 months to go before its July 1, 2011 release tells me that pre-production on this project began either as soon as the second film premiered or while it was finishing post.

Gone in this third and, as Michael Bay announced earlier, final film in the series is Megan Fox thus Shia LeBouf’s character Sam Witwicky will have a new love interest in English model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Most of the cast from both previous films will return and so do most of the primary Transformers on both sides. With the Fallen having fallen in the second film this third entry will bring in one of the more popular Decepticons in Shockwave to act as the main villain. How they’ll work this part of the script into having Shockwave being the main heavy despite Megatron still appearing in the film will be interesting to see.

In the end, the film will have great special-effects courtesy of ILM with chaos and destruction as seen through the mad-eyes of Bay. The wild card is whether Bay has learned how to work the 3-D cameras used to film the project from beginning to end. Because no matter what people may think of James Cameron he seems to be the only one who has figured out how to properly create an immersive 3-D film and not lose out on the action end.

Will Bay’s hyper-kinetic and MTV-style editing be able to work well with 3-D or will this third film just end up making its entire audience nauseous and I don’t mean from the film’s plot. We’ll soon find out this coming July.