Sorority Row/(dvd)

Sorority Row

"Notable Actors"

1. some chick
2. this douche bag
3. dumb hoe

with appearances by

• a sniveling Rumor Willis; (Demi Moore and Bruce Willis offspring)
• Audrina Patridge (the girl from The Hills with veneers that are too big for her mouth)

Genre

• horror
• thriller

Director

Stewart Hendler (nothing special on his resume)

Sorority Row. I wasn't planning on seeing this movie at all. I deffinitely wasn't going to review it either. On a bored whim I pulled it out of my local RedBox, went home and popped it in. I will try to keep this review as short as possible. You may know the bare minumum of the plot,  a sorority sister (Audrina Patridge) is accidently killed in a prank gone wrong and left for dead. Soon after, someone starts picking off the girls involved one by one with a tire iron (that has sharp attachments on it.)  This is your typical slasher so ofcourse instead of substance their is plentiful helpings of bad acting, topless women, and awful dialogue. The premise itself is not only absurd but just plain wrong when able minded beings stop to think of it. Audrina's boyfriend, Garrett, was given what he thinks is roofies by his real sister "Chuggs" who is also Audrina's sorority sister. Audrina is his girlfriend and  he tries to have sex with her while she's drugged. Pause! ummm isn't that called RAPE??? I find this highly weird. I guess when it comes to Sororities all moral compasses are checked at the door. It turned out not to be roofies but that meant that Garrett is the kind of guy that has no problem taking advangtage of his drugged girlfriend and for no apparent reason. Nobody else finds this weird though. Halfway through the molestation Audrina starts convulsing and foaming at the mouth and Garrett thinks shes dead. He runs to his sister Chuggs and they along with 5 other sorority sisters put her 'dead' body in a car and drive off. What Garrett doesn't know is that this is all a trick. Audrina and her friends thought that it would be funny to pretend she was dead and that he killed her. They considered this the ultimate revenge because Garrett cheated on Audrina and instead of confronting and breaking up with him she opted to play dead. Lets pause again. Who the hell would do that? It's cruel and disturbing. I'm even more disturbed when the girls easily get Garren to agree that they should just dump her dead body in a well and go back to the party they just left. Am I really the only one who sees what kind've man it would take to drug and rape  his girlfriend with help from his sister and her sorority then after "killing" her dump her body as if its some rag. And what kind've women would particpiate in something so heartless? Its the most tasteless thing I have ever heard and everyone involved deserves whatever consequences lay ahead. As you know from the trailer Garrett kills Audrina for real. He  shoves a tire iron through her chest. Honestly I'm not sure why. I rewound the dvd twice at this part and think he may have been trying to open the airways in her chest but it was weird and random and unclear why he was doing it. Without any real explanation Audrina  immediately passes on and  I don't feel bad for her. It was an ironic "life imitating art" situation.

The rest of the movie turns into a wannabe thriller "who-dunnit?" The killer, wielding one of the weirdest weapons of all time, is also dressed in a black robe that covered their face. The vibe I got was Urban Legend meets I Know What You Did Last Summer. Since the killers weapon was akward, big and sharp all the kills were essentially the same ; slit throats. The Murderer even manages to kill someone thats all the way down the hall by throwing the tire ax expertly and very ninja like hitting spot on in the throat.  Whatever!

The writers of the movie (who have written Good Luck Chuck  -_-) tried their best to confuse the audience of who the killer was. They had the nerve to throw us so many red herring's in attempts to create twists and turns for us. Ofcourse all the obvious ones had totally legitimate reasons for being the killer so I kept them in the back of my mind.  But when the real killer was revealed I was surprised and not in a good way. The killers so-called motives were even worse. It wasn't that the girls didn't deserve to be killed, but the person that decided to teach them a lesson came completely out of nowhere. I know the objective was to shock us but it really just annoyed me. The people that made this crap thought it was much better than it actually was.

As in the scare factor, there is no supsense what-so-ever, not even jumping moments. I was bored and only curious to see who the killer was and it truly wasn't worth it when I found out. Sorority Row just may be one of the dumbest movies I have seen in a long time and the only satisfying part of it all was being able to release all of my frustations in this blog. I wanted to alert the public what the real story is behind Sorority Row. It started off with an attempted rape (which was fine with everybody!) and somehow only happened to plummet even further from there. Skip this one guys, even if  it is only one dollar. Come to think of it, even if its free.

The Vampire Diaries; volume 1/(young adult book/now a televsion series)

The Vampire Diaries

volume 1

Author

• L.S. Smith

Genre

• non fiction
• thriller/suspense/fantasy
• vampire
• love

The vampire Diaries. Part one; The Awakening & part two; The Struggle. Okay guys I hope your not sick of these vampire stories yet. I know I'm not :) After a few recommendations from fellow nerds I finally picked up Volume 1 of The Vampire Diaries.  Sadly it started off strangely reminding me of a stripper, on stage for the first time. Slow, scared, inexperienced and almost cringe worthy. She's the girl paying her way through college but weary that her job will imprison her! I felt similiar hoping this hogwash wouldn't turn me off so much that I never lifted another book again. Two things saved this saga from my trash bin. (1) I hoped the stripper would get a bit more confidant and perk up and (2)I'm cheap. Why is that relevant?  Because I paid  $9.95 for this book and I didnt want it to be another waste of litetrature an more importantly my money. It took many attampts to get through the dreadful first half of The Vampire Diaries. And believe me this was no easy feat after meeting our shallow blond bombshell bitch of a heroin, Elena. She is the epitomy of the girl every boy wants to deflower and every girl wants to be. She is spoiled, selfish and only keeps around people for her own agenda.  Why couldnt the stripper be more like her?  Her inner circle includes her two close friends, (one with psychic abilities,) and a her boyfriend the most popular boy in school. I very early on grow tired of Elena and her awesomeness. I don't know how any reader could like her even when they give her a traumatic back story for sympathy. She now lives with her aunty because her parents were killed. She also has two young siblings, or is it one? It doesnt really matter, almost all of the minor roles are meerly page fillers with no contribution to the story what so ever. There are plenty of characters in the book but  most of them are as flat and dimensional as a comic book cartoon.  And the people we do get to know happen to be as likeable as a sex offender. Luckily there is some (very slim) character development for the main roles L.S. Smith has created. I was constantly rolling my eyes and deeming this book too juvenile for  myself. Although I  sometimes prefer reading young a adults books theirs only so much "fluff" I can bear. I moaned and groaned reading Elena's first diary entry telling us that she is scared for she believes something is coming for her. Even more so as Elena's psychic reading friend , Bonnie, read Elena's palm and could foretell her meeting a tall, dark, stranger in the future. I'm not sure how the lines on her hand led Bonnie to this improbable conclusion but long behold Stefan Salvitore. The new student that just happens to be tall, dark and handsome. Oh and did I mention he's a bloodsucking invincible lad as well? The story gets a teeny bit more interesting as Elena promptly dumps Matt her popular boyfriend, and enlists her gal pals to bag the new guy. Stefan is the usual "good guy"  vampire only feeding on animals.  From Stefan's POV he is enchanted with Elena. She shares an uncanny resemblance with Katherine, the one who turned him into a vampire and the only girl he has ever loved. Eventhough that was centuries ago and Elena is 100times more feisty than his beloved its still an Usher's "you remind me" situation for him; (lyrics)

...you remind of a girl that I once knew/ see her face whenever I look at you/ you wont believe all of the things she put me through/ this is why I just can't get with you/...
  Still reeling from what his lady Katherine "put him through" Stefan decided to stay away from Elena. In doing so he's "mean" to her. Ignoring every advance, and eventually humiliating poor Elena, and its about time someone knocked her down a peg.

Halfway through part one Stefan saves Elena from a potential rape and this sparks their relationship. That'll deffinitely be a story to tell the kids how mommy and daddy got together . Our heroin finds herself head over heels in love and him of her. Unaware that he's a blood lusting immortal, Elena senses that he's hiding something but is content with there relationship so doesn't push the envelope. Although she becomes more likeable and less superficial while with Stefan Elena's still the same bitch. She has no problem writing off her friends, family and school work to be with him. I will admit  as far as teenage vampire lovers go they got a cute thing goin. But its not new. Its not surprising and its expected in this genre.

 Picture this;  the strippers first song is over and she is relieved and cant believe that she did it. Slowly she is lettig go of her inhibitions and she opens up more. Things start to get juicy when another dark stranger roams (or flys) into town. He too is gorgeous and is taken with Elena the first time he sees her. And she is almost entranced with stranger danger whom we come to know as Damon. The chemistry they share is off the charts and even in their first meeting she is almost compelled to kiss him. We soon find out that Damon is Stefan's evil older sibling and he's got a score to settle with his brother. Coincidently murders start happening in town around the same time as these two young studs move in making everyone weary of Stefan. Eventually he reveals his dark secret to Elena and warns her about Damon. Elena LOVES Stefan but cannot deny the electric sexual tension that she shares with his brother although he also disgusts her. At the end of The Awakening, Damon and his brother square off for Elena. Stefan is powerless against his brother who feeds quite well on humans, making him much stronger, faster and more dangerous. He leaves Stefan for dead.
Because of that ending I was more than anxious to get into part two The Struggle. If The Awakening was an apple I took my time patiently eating I devoured The Struggle like a hungry stripper that hadn't eaten in centuries. As Elena learned of Stefan's "death" from the wicked Damon she starts a man hunt looking for her beloved because she knows in her heart he is still alive somewhere. She enlists her friends and even the boy she dumped for Stefan to help find him. And proving to be both a good guy and a dumb ass, he readily helps Elena find her guy. To nurse Stefan back to health she lets him suck her blood. But because Damon is still alive we know that the dual is not over for these Cain and Able like brothers. Vampire Diaries is a cute story. Its not really bringing anything new to the table other than the brothers hating eachother thing.  L.J. Smith gives us an interesting if not cliched take on what vampires are in her own mind.
Since the protagonist is female I can imagine that the author has spent many a night thinking of herself as the fantastic Elena; who meets her everlasting love, the gorgeous, the celestial, Stefan Salvitore and then has the honor of two immortals fighting to the death over her.
Fortunately these guys don't sparkle in the sun ( sorry Twilight fans,) In fact the duo would burn to death and  need a ring in order to bear the sunlight. Smith brings it old school again because  in her world Vampires may not enter a dwelling unless it a public one, with out an invitation. Retro right? It took me a while to get through what should have been a fairly easy read. But what miss Smith irked me with in the first half she made up for in the second half. I am looking forward to seeing what our author has next for our characters.
Will Elena bed Stefan or his wicked brother Damon first? Or will it be neither, this is a young adults book!
Will Elenas friends develop at least two dimensional qualities?
Will the town discover Stefans secrets?
Will the stripper pay her way through college?
Hopefully the next installment has all these answers plus much more. Im hoping that the author, like our stripper has a few more tricks up her sleeve.
book grade
C+
worth reading?
 I guess

The Stepfather/(newly released DVD)

The Stepfather

"Notable Actors"

1. No One special
2. Whats his face
3. that girl from that thing

Genre

• thriller
• horror

Director

Nelson McCormick (Prom Night)

The Stepfather(2oo9). Meet David. David is our antagonist. He's the guy at the grocery store that seems so friendly making idle chat with your mother about the weather. He appears to be a man that has been hurt bad when he tells you all about his daughter and wife being killed by a drunk driver. He's the man that gets engaged to your mom soon after and says he has big aspirations for the family. Yea he's a real family man.
Meet Michael. Michael is our hero. He is a 17 year old returning home from military school for the summer. He's the typical bad boy thats been reformed. He's not thrilled about his mom remarrying but isn't happy with own father either so for now he can deal with Daivd who seems like a nice guy. He's not suspicious of David right off the back but very quickly he learns that theres more than meets the eye.
From the trailers alone one could easily compare this 'family fun' flick to Disturbia (Shia LaBeouf) and/or Domestic Disturbance (John Travolta). I was hoping things werent as similiar as they seemed but they were so if you've seen either of the two then essentially you have seen The Stepfather already. The funny thing is that The Stepfather came before both, (its a remake of The Stepfather1987)
 But the aforementioned earlier films are much more original and enjoyable than the movie I am reviewing today and I would highly recomend either in exchange for this pale comparison of a thriller.
Upon Michaels arrivial from Military school he is content with having David around. He feeds Michael the drunk driver story, helps hims rejoin his school swim team which he loves and is keeping his mother happy. But within days Michael starts sensing something isn't right with this man. A neighbor sees a sketch on Americas Most Wanted that resembles his  fututre step dad, and after jokingly telling Michaels mom she is killed in an "accident" a day later. Somehow step dad knows the details before anyone else does. The weird activity doesn't stop there.  Daddy  keeps giving Micheal strange threatening stares, he's grabbed his brother innapropriately a few times and he even forgets the name of his deseased family members and his own!
This is no mystery to us. From the very beginning we are forced to look at a man (David) with a long beard and glasses start his morning. He shaves, has breafast and casually pulls out the drive way as we are greeted with a disturbing image of a mother and her three kids lifeless bodies are scattered all over the house. We know that step pa is indeed a killer. The detectives bring us up to speed and give us the 4-1-1 on the guy. To me its a disclaimer. There telling you upfront how freaking the stupid the concept is and I guess the rest is on us on whether or not to finish the flick or pop in a different dvd. Unfortunately I chose the latter. We learn that not only that is David a killer he is only interested in killing divorcees and/or widows along their kids. At the start of the movie we learn that this is his third family. Ok, This is the meat of the film. And its absolute foolishness. I mean come the hell on! that's just stupid. Your telling me this guy goes from place to place preying on single women long enough to earn the title stepdad so he can eventually kill the family? Why would anybody do that? And why is it after so many times that he's done it he still hasn't gotten his story straight? What a sloppy conman/killer.
The madness doens't stop there. Father has been able to go from family to family undetected for several years becasuse of completely legitamite reasons that would totally work in the real world. (sarcasm detected?) He has a fool-proof disquise shaving off his long beard, dyeing his black hair to a lighter dark dark dark brown and choosing to put in contacts instead of glasses. (Amazing!) He's also managed to never have his picture taken by anyone and promptly deletes secret photos taken without his consent. David knows better than to leave a paper trail behind so he strictly pays cash for everything and chooses to work like an undocumented immigrant, only jobs that pay him under the table!
It's a completely improbable scenario. Almost ridiculously so. The terror still doesn't end there, the movie was completely predicatable. I probably could have written this review had I not watched it anyway, but I would have guessed that it would have made a little more sense than it did. The death scenes were unoriginal and everyone that died was so stupid for putting themselves in such vulnerable positions that I think they got what they deserved. Michael was the only character that I liked in the film. His character was the only believeable one, he grew in obsession along with suspsicion for his step dad. He was your typical teenage boy, surrounded by a ton of adult idiots. He had a sexy girlfriend who wouldn't even entertain his thoughts on stepdad  and rolled her eyes at him more than anything.(dumb broad) She was clearly a show piece for the film. Her wardrobe consisted of different colored itty bitty bikins and a bra and panties, thats it. Throughout the whole 98 minutes we got to see her rock hard abs and nice body. I'm guessing she was the apology from the director for giving us such a shitty movie and she helped alittle, I suppose.
The Stepfather was a failure, not a total failure but it was, okay a total failure. The movie did have one almost redeeming moment though. The anti-climatic ending was still severly bad but the only unpredictable part of The Stepfather. First we have the usual scene where everyone that doubted Michael all realize that his suspicions were right and David actually is a killer. Michael actually finds a dead body in a locked wooden storage container in the basement (this man had the nerve to hide dead bodies in the house?) So mom, Michael and hot girlfriend are all running from David and mom stabs him with  broken glass in his neck. He recovers, (ofcourse). Somehow him and David end up on the roof for the ultimate dual. Its what we were all waiting for. Astoningishly not only does David fall off the roof like we knew he would, he takes our hero with him! They plummet to the ground.
Fastforward. One month later Michael wakes up in a hosptital bed from a coma! Mom and sexy girlfriend are there cause they just knew he would wake up one day and god forbid he wake up alone. Then they lay the bomb on us. Although Michael was injured bad enough to fall into a coma, our relentless  stepfather somehow safely got away before the police made it. As the ending credits role in David preys on another single mom with two boys, anxious to yet again be called stepfather. But maybe after all that David has been he might just opt for a  regular divorce this time.
Movie grade
F+
Worth Watching?
Hells no

500 Days of Summer /(newly released dvd)

                                                   500 Days of Summer
"Notable Actors"

1. Joseph Gordon- Levitt ( 3rd Rock from the Sun, 10 Things I Hate About You
2. Zooey Deschanel- (The Happening, Yes Man)

 

Genre

•  Romantic comedy

• Drama?

Director

 Marc Webb (first feature film)

 500 Days of  Summer. "This movie is not a love story." Thats what the narrator lets us know right off  the top. Is it a disclaimer? Maybe. If it is, it's a damn good one. But even with something like that as the very first line of the movie I was so not prepared for the roller coaster ride ahead. When it was all over I was hopeing it wasn't a love story because if thats what love is.... I may sit the next one out.

Ok, so 500 Days of Summer is not a love story, we've established that, it is still a story . A story about a boy and girl. The boy is Tom Hanson, a pretty miserable human being, who has a love for architecture yet works at a company that writes greeting cards, (interesting transition right?) He has the same boring life with his job, few close friends and very wise and mature sister, several years younger that he turns to for advice. He essentially feels dead inside and believes, like sleeping beauty, that only his true love can bring him to life, and the very first day he sees Summer he is convinced that she is the one. Thus the first day of  Summer begins. The movie brillaintly goes back and forth between the 500 days and along the way we see where Tom fell in love with Summer (although this isn't a love story). At first things seemed great. Summer "anal girl" Flin blew in from another town because she was bored and started as Tom's  bosses assistant. Summer is a girl that does what she wants when she wants it and wont settle for anything. Unlike Tom she doesn't believe in love because she has never experienced it. Her parents broke up when she was very young and it litterally scarred her for life. 

 

 As Tom got to know Summer he was sincerely amazed by how much they had in common. He had never met someone who was so compatible with him in all his life. He wanted Summer but was too nervous to pull the trigger. Luckily for him, he didnt have to. After a few akward get togethers Tom and Summer shared a few spicy kisses in the copy room and Tom was aboslutely smitten. From that day on they spent all their time together and they appeared to the couple everyone wanted to be! From playing husband and wife in Ikea, to dinner and movie dates, weird museums and shower sex, Tom has never felt more alive. But Summer makes it clear upfront that she not looking for anything serious. Tom decides without hesitation that it's fine and he can do it casual.  But apparently his feelings  for Summer were anything but.

Any sensible person recognizing that Summer's days were numbered, (litterally) would soon discover that whatever was going on between the two wouldn't last forever. Selfishly I wanted it to last. We see Tom at his happiest when he's with Summer. One the highest times for him was even translated into a dance number in the middle of the street complete with plenty of back ups and even an animated bird! Gordon played Tom like he had been him in a past life. His character was so relatable I couldn't help but root for him and hope that in the end he got the girl he wanted. But unfortunately that girl was unattainable, well in a serious sense. As the number of days went 300 and up (post non-relationship break up) Tom is lower than low. Not showing up for work, sleeping for days at a time, living off twinkies and vodka low. This is translated to him walking in a animated black and white scene, and Tom is etched out. Again I cant help but feel his pain, I was litterally depressed on these parts of the film. He loves Summer. Although I can't remember hearing him ever utter the words to her. And she never considered him more than a friend. It really was Tom's fault when it comes to the bare facts. FRom the beginning Summer told Tom  in plain and simple english she didn't want anything serious. But Tom was already in way too deep. He made the mistake most women make. He thought he could change Summer. In a lot of ways he did, slowly but surely she let her guard down with him. Sharing things she never shared with anyone before, letting him into to her world. But the important thing that he never changed was her mind. And my struggle of understanding the complex and cold character Zooey Deschanel was comes in. Tom was fully commited to her 100%. He lived and breathed for Summer and she seemed just as smitten with him. But as the days grew in number she began to pull back from Tom and left him. She just knew that it couldn't go anywhere for her. That they couldn't even end something because it really never started. For this I admire her for being true to her heart and not settling for one second. But I aslo felt dislike for this quirky,  little-too-casual girl. It seemed as if she was just playing with Tom to pass the time, what was bliss for Tom was something she could very easily shrug off and forget, and that makes her seem more cruel and cold than anything.

 

 Tom hopes to get back with Summer even after they had parted ways for many a days (about a hundred).

When they cross paths again he discovers she's engaged! Pretty infuriating, I must say, and heart breaking. He is now forced to move on with his life. He finally gets into architecture, and gets his life back on track, becoming thankful for the people in his life that will always be there.

On the last day of Summer, they run into eachother, its the most touching, sad, maddeing, yet understandable part of the film. Tom asks Summer why it couldn't have been him and she holds nothing back. She knew Tom wasn't the one. So she let him go. She was near tears as she told him goodbye, almost in a regretful way. But we'll never know if she was. Tom now has the closure he needs to move on with life. Summer had given him the tools to move on  to the next step. Like her name Summer was merely a season of Tom's life. And although it took him a long time to recover, she was necessary for him. This wasn't the typical romantic comedy. It was more dark than anything, even the narrator had a eery undertone. Nonetheless 500 Days of Summer was a great movie. Altough a little depressing it showed us all the power of love. It can ruin us, it can make us.  This story may be too real for some hoping for a mushy, and predictable ending. But thats the beauty of 500 Days of Summer. Its unpredicatable, real, passionate and meaningful. It can leave you lifted, or drained. Inspire and enlighten or confuse and depress. 500 Days of Summer truly was a rollercoaster. And it was definitely alot like love. But then again this wasn't a love story. Was it?

Movie Grade

A

Worth Watching?

 hell yea!