Film Opinion

April 15, 2008

A Lackluster 30 Days of Night.

There really was potential here.  30 Days of Night is essentially a translation of the three graphic novel mini-series by writer/artist combo, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.  Unfortunately, I have never read the graphic novels, and probably because it was published in '04, busy times for me.  Moving on, the movie's premise is unclear, but what is clear is there are vampires, there are humans, and finally there are 30 Days of Night!

Which is exactly the problem with this film.  Before the blood hits the screen you have no idea of who's who, what's what and why there are vampires in friggin Alaska!?!  Which begs the question, where do Vampires go during the consecutive days of sun?

The highlight of this hack and slash flick is the cinematography.  The DP (that's Director of Photography) did an excellent job of moving and placing the camera to get shots of these monsters that makes the movie easy to watch, but the holes within the plot makes it hard to understand.  There is no explanation of where these vampires came from, where they go, or why they would care about some suck town, pardon the pun, out in BFE Alaska.  So yeah, don't rent this movie!

Verdict: PASS

GBG is really worth watching.

GBG With the free time, I've been on the DS plenty and watching movies as if they were, you've got it, going out of style.  And thus my first blogged FO is Gone Baby Gone a deeply engrossing film about a missing girl within the South Boston Projects.  Honestly I can't remember the names of the main characters and the reason why could be I am still dealing with the overly complex question that the movie poses.  Though I would like to go into a deeper discussion of what's right, what's wrong; I would be giving away the ending.

Casey Affleck stars as the main protagonist with a unique perspective of the Southie Projects where he lives and the abduction takes place, he is hired by the missing girl's aunt to augment the BPD's search for the missing child.  What ensues is a dark and eerie tale of drugs, murder and flat out bad parenting.  With each clue to the missing child's whereabouts Affleck's character falls deeper through the rabbit hole and is eventually confronted with a choice that he, and most likely the audience, will second guess long after the fade to black.

Affleck outshines most of the cast, though Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris do exceptionally well in their small parts.  But above all the older brother Affleck, gets all the pieces in the right spot on his directorial debut, so I could say that I am eager to see his next flick with him behind the camera.  The films' subject matter may make it hard to watch and hurts the films ability to stand up to multiple watchings, but so was 8MM, and that was a good flick too.

Verdict: RENT

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