We saw the new Sandra Bullock picture, The Blind Side, which was nice and inspirational even though it laid it on thick and made it seem like all of life's problems could be solved with money and sass. Lots of sass. It also didn't help that I know next to nothing about football particularly the fervent loyalty of fans in the Southern SEC. Living in Cleveland, my football knowledge is limited to "$@!# Browns!" You should check it out. A great story heightened by its true basis. And Kathy Bates is in it.
We also checked out the following film...
Starring Milla "Lilu Dalla Multipass" Jovovich, The Fourth Kind is a supernartual thriller based on supposed true events in the town of Nome, Alaska. Folks in our 49th state are having trouble sleeping and it has something to do with an owl. Or a murderer? Or ancient Sumerians? Or aliens?
This movie is a hot damn mess. I try to steer clear of technical criticism since I would not know a filter from a gaffer, but the whole setup was distracting. Much like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, Fourth Kind includes so called actual footage into the movie. This time we are told that the recordings are from actual sessions with Milla's character, psychologist Abigail Tyler, and show her patients' violent reactions to remembering being taken. The movie decided to juxtapose these images with shot for shot reenactments with Milla and the crew. So we are seeing two movies at once. Except it is the same thing! Maybe another angle would have helped, but its like watching your home movies made with a much bigger budget. The film even divides the scenes into a quad screen with moving borders that increase and decrease the size of each panel as the scene progresses.
I have no idea why the film makers tried this. Why show us the same thing two, three, even, four times? Maybe it was to give the supposed real photo some extra authenticity. The time we would really like the reenactments are those scare moments when the aliens show up and the cameras goes all wonky. Between distorted snow we often see some creepy images of victims floating in the air and distorted into grotesque poses. This are few and far between and presented in the same shaky-cam style that made The Blair Witch Project a chore. The dual view took me times out of the experience and had me and some of the fellow movie goers laughing at were supposed to be harrowing scenes.
The film plays fast and loose with its plot. I could appreciate the scatter shot approach if this was indeed based on true stories, but it is not. Universal Studios actually lost a lawsuit brought forward by the Alaska Press Club because of the deceptive promotion. A viral marketing campaign peppered sites with fake news stories associate to actual Alaskan media. The artifice of the story requires good story telling, not ham handed efforts to make all of this seem real.
I wanted to like this movie and I wanted to lose sleep over it. As a young boy and teenager, I was obsessed with the paranormal and especially aliens. I have since become much more skeptical, but the fear of those almond eye emaciated visitors still creeps me out. Indeed, there is something alien and soul less about that imagery. However, Fourth Kind never even shows the monsters or hints at their faces. The big reveal is a bunch of black shadows coming for Abigail. You don't need to give us the full monster Monty, but a peek or peer would have been nice.
Many critics have also pointed out that the whole owl omen is hokey. A.O. Scott of The New York times said that owls are not scary. I must agree that the owl omen is never used to full effect, but feel it could have been done right. This image from the trailer hints at a possible transformation of earthly being to alien visitor.
The trailer I saw focused a lot on the owl and I thought we were going to get a sci-fi "The Raven" type scenario where the beings stalk victims with an earthly creature they find appealing.
I hope you don't waste your money on this especially because you can get a better experience watching sixteen year old episodes of The X-Files. Of course, I am in the camp that watching X-Files beats out a lot of things.
Peace!
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