Top Ten Movies of 2013

I haven't done a blog post in a while. Let's do that.

Keep in mind this is more of a rambling blog post instead of a formal list.

Despite having missed a number of important films this past year (12 Years a Slave, Inside Llewyn Davis, Kill Your Darlings, The Spectacular Now, Trance, the divisive Only God Forgives, and The Place Beyond the Pines, to name a few,) I saw more new releases in 2013 than in any other year of my life. Out of the 37 new releases I saw – about 20 of which I liked – here are my top ten films of 2013:

10. Spring Breakers

Harmony Korrine's sunshine-and-kerosine satire was one of the most unique films to come out this year. Despite being marketed in the vein of party movies like Project X and The Hangover, Spring Breakers is a hazy fever dream about materialism and the disillusion of American youth. The cast shines with ingeniously casted Disney starlets and James Franco. Franco's performance in particular would have easily been up for an Oscar in a film more accessible to the Academy. Although its narrative is relatively weak, Spring Breakers is a difficult, poignant piece of artwork that left a lasting impact on me.

9. Evil Dead

I've already said everything I need to say about this movie. It's a fun, gory romp that is relentless, stylish, and thoroughly entertaining. You can check out my review here

8. The Conjuring

A perfect haunted house film, and one of the best horror films to come out in years. I honestly don't have much more to say about this movie. It does what it does, and it does it flawlessly.

7. Gravity

If there were ever an example of a movie whose end result was greater than the sum of its individual parts, it's Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. The fact of the matter is that the story isn't anything special. A standard survival movie... In space! The religious themes are awkwardly worked in, hamfisted, and ultimately unnecessary to the film. The writing's not anything to get excited about either. To be frank, I could probably write out more criticisms for Gravity than praises; however, the cinematography, direction, SFX work, and a strong lead performance from Sandra Bullock save the movie from mediocrity. Cuaron created a spectacle. This is almost unquestionably the prettiest movie that's ever been released. The cinematography took my breath away a number of times. This is a movie that captures childhood magic, and makes you ask “how did they do that?” Despite being generic, the story is told fairly well and with palpable tension. You're kept on the edge of your seat, temporarily blinded to all the movie's shortcomings. It's hard to believe that something that is essentially a 90 minute anxiety attack can be so fun. This is not a perfect film by any means, and its merits will decrease greatly during the transition from theater to home media, but seeing Gravity in 3D in a theater was without a doubt one of the best rides I took all year.

6. American Hustle

American Hustle is a fantastic movie. A fantastic movie that didn't strike me in the way that it struck others. This movie proved to be a year-end darling that really knocked it out of the park with critics and audiences. And it's not without reason: the performances are top-notch, the story is fantastic and unpredictable, and the dialogue is well-written. However, this one didn't rank higher for me due to the blandness that I perceived in the direction. David O. Russell knows how to make a really good movie. A really good, really safe movie. The direction here is begging for more risk-taking and style, which Russell never really steps up to the plate for. The direction is very straightforward, and the style is incredibly lacking in spite of fantastic costume design.

I do like David O. Russell's work, but I don't love it. The movies he makes are excellent, but executed without much risk. Had this movie been helmed by a different director, or if Russell stepped further outside of his comfort zone, this probably would have ranked higher for me.

5. Oldboy

This is one that isn't going to be making many year-end lists. This is partially due to the fact that it brought in less than $2 Million at the box office, so not too many people have seen it. Also, it was widely panned by critics and audiences alike.

Why is this on my year-end list again?

Oh right, because this is a story that I love, told in a way that kept me incredibly engaged and entertained. The original Korean film is my favorite movie of all time, so I went in with high expectations, though I didn't write it off as a “shitty remake” as so many others did before going in. I went in with an open mind, and came out incredibly satisfied.

For those who don't know, Oldboy is the story of a man who is imprisoned in a room for over decade without any reason known to him. Upon his release, he is given five days to unravel the mystery of his imprisonment. The movie is a fast-paced mystery with twists and turns that even kept me, someone familiar with the story, entertained. It's violent, twisted, smart, and remarkably entrancing.

Though the film could have used a bit more fleshing out (almost undeniably due to the massive cuts Lee had to make to the film,) I loved it. Fantastic cast. Josh Brolin's Joseph Doucett is a vile man who repents and seeks revenge with an undeniable fire in his eyes. His performances in the violent scenes are especially notable – Brolin smashes everyone who stands in the way of the truth with legitimate animalistic aggression. Brolin is truly one of the most underrated actors of our time. Elizabeth Olsen is a fantastic rising star, and, though her role here was cut down – and therefore less developed - from what it probably initially was, she played the part as well as anyone could. Sharlto Copley's antagonistic role, Adrian Pryce, garnered a lot of criticisms due to the campy, over-the-top nature of the performance. For such a mentally disturbed yet sophisticated character, though, I thought it was very fitting. And of course, Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson, which I enjoy.

The pacing is much faster than the original, which is fitting for the change in tone. The movie is more of a noir revenge mystery instead of an existential horror like the original, and the feel of the movie really reflects that.

Explaining my love for this movie on a critical level is difficult. I do think the film has more than its fair share of artistic merits, but a full explanation of my feelings would probably come through more clearly in a full review. Which might happen when it hits Blu-Ray.

If you're into dark mysteries, check this one out. If you don't have a stick up your ass regarding remakes, you'll probably at least like it.

The original is better, but Spike Lee's Oldboy is a fine, incredibly entertaining film nonetheless.

4. Pain & Gain

Had someone approached me at the beginning of the year and told me that a Michael Bay movie would be making my top five of the year, I would have shared a good-natured laugh with them and then proceeded to buy them a big Pastrami sandwich from the deli down the road because such comedy must build an appetite. Alas, Bay's Pain & Gain was one of the most enjoyable movies I watched this year. Easily the most pleasantly surprised I was all year. This movie is a lost buddy action gem of the 1990s, injected with a staggering dosage of new-millennium cynicism and excess. A satire of indulgence, greed, and “swoll” lifestyle set against the backdrop of a darkly comedic action crime movie. Never has Bay's direction been more suited for a film. The bombastic, over-the-top cinematography and story direction couldn't have been done better (at least in the same style) by any other director. Michael Bay's juvenile sense of humor and questionable view of the world are the perfect tools to tell the stranger-than-fiction story of the real-life Sun Gym Gang. The three leads are wonderfully written; instead of being portrayed as anti-heroes, we see these charming, charismatic guys as evil, evil men who are still likable enough to follow. The story is both hilariously unbelievable and nauseatingly gruesome. Every performance is so filled with heart and passion that it's baffling, especially from Dwayne Johnson. This is a project that everyone involved was passionate about, and it shows. Wonderful performances, appropriate direction, eye-catching cinematography, and a ton of fun. This is one film on the list that I recommend without any hesitation. Funny, intriguing, and an absolute spectacle.

I can firmly say that I love a Michael Bay movie, and I don't even care.

3. The Wolf of Wall Street

Most people who follow film are crying out in agony. Martin Scorsese's divisive sleaze romp The Wolf of Wall Street being placed on a year-end list above American Hustle, a film almost universally considered both by critics and audiences alike to be superior to Wolf? I suppose to explain this, I have to make a bit of a digression and delve into my personal tastes.

Though I do like doing these articles, I'm primarily a writer of poetry and prose. If you read some of my material, you'll likely be pretty overwhelmed at times by drugs, sex, and violence. That's what I like to write about. Is it because I'm childish and those things are cool? I don't think so. I think that all of these things are good tools to use in art for the purpose of demonstrating the human experience. Oftentimes in exploitative media, exploitation is used poorly for shock value and to appeal to an immature audience. When executed well, though, it makes for great art.

To sum it up, I like obscene exploitation when it's executed with craft and meaning. In this movie, it does have meaning. The excess, greed, and insanity perfectly paints a picture of an unstable man's downfall. This movie wasn't just sex and drugs, it was disease. On top of that, exploitation in movies is simply entertaining to me. I'm the kind of person who started throwing money in every which way as soon as I heard that there was a scene in Wolf in which Leonardo DiCaprio blows cocaine out of a hooker's anus. One thing I admire so strongly about this film is its honest, graphic depiction of human sexuality. Due to American squeamishness in terms of sex in media, this is a bold move by Scorsese that is a unique treat to witness in a mainstream movie theater.

This would all be meaningless if the film wasn't good by its own merits. Needless to say, Scorsese brings his A-game. There's not anything new that I can say about his directorial work that hasn't already been said. Like most respectable artists, he takes risks that are sure to polarize his audience. The pacing, structure, and narration of the film are all very unconventional and could be offputting, but they worked for me.

I won't even begin to delve into the marvelous performance by DiCaprio. It's everything you'd hope for and more from the ultimate Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration.

2. Stoker

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who either reads this blog or has ever spoken to me for more than five minutes. Park Chan-Wook is among my favorite directors, and his English-language debut was almost everything I'd hoped it would be. Dark, sleazy, and deliciously Hitchkockian, Stoker flew under the radar when it received a limited release, but this humble little film is something truly special. The mystery and performances are good, but what really sticks out to me about this movie is the unique direction.

I've written a review for Stoker, you can check it out here if you haven't already.

1. Out of the Furnace

Let's ignore the Rotten Tomatoes score. Let's ignore the lukewarm reception, poor box-office performance, and lack of audience buzz. Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace was the film I saw this year where the first thing I said to my viewing companion afterward was “That was the best thing I've seen all year.” Though I thought this would be dethroned by latecomers American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street, my sentiments are consistent: as a fan of film, there isn't a single new release in 2013 that I enjoyed more than Out of the Furnace.

This is the kind of movie that opens with a methhead inbred redneck shoving a hot dog down a woman's throat while at a drive-in. Somehow this is done with stark seriousness and terror. It's that kind of movie.

A blue collar tragedy set in the American midwest, Cooper's bleak tale paints a picture more vivid and human than most films. While the plot may not be the strongest aspect – though I didn't have as many problems with it as many critics did – the craftsmanship of the film constructs such a beautiful piece of art that it utterly blindsided me. The tone is bleak and honest. The cinematography is breathtaking. The characters feel so human; there's a scene between Christian Bale and Zoe Saldana early on in the film that was possibly one of the most devastating moments put to film. The performances and characters are so strong that the sparse shortcomings of the plot are more than redeemed.

No better cast was compiled for a film this year, and everyone is at their best. Every bit of Oscar buzz that Bale has gotten thus far for American Hustle is a waste; Bale's performance in Out of the Furnace is the best of his career. Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Casey Affleck, Forrest Whitaker, and Zoe Saldana also turn in some of the best work of their careers. I could write about each individual performance until the cows come home, but it would be useless. You have to see them to believe them.

Scott Cooper is one of the most promising up-and-coming directors around right now. Keep an eye on him.

Chances are you haven't seen Out of the Furnace since it only raked in about $9 Million at the domestic box office. If you're reading this, you should probably get to seeing it... Now.

...

And that concludes my year-end list! If you've read this far, I applaud and thank you. It's a good thing I'm not a major movie critic, or this list would probably get me strung up by my neck.

Evil Dead (2013) Review

My apologies for the delay in this review. Finishing up my first year at college ended up being pretty stressful, and settling back into home life took a bit, and while I'm still not totally settled, I'm back!

After Sadako 3D, I needed a reprieve from shitty horror movies, so I took a little trip to the theater.

Now this is more like it.

I suppose I should preface this by saying I'm of a rare breed; I'm a person who's really into movies, but isn't necessarily against remakes. Shock and horror, right? Burn the witch, etc. Everyone knows that remakes are the worst thing to ever happen to the world and totally ruin the integrity of the original because that's obviously how things work.

That mindset is terribly close-minded and petty, though. To go off on a bit of a tangent, I was raised on the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. That was the first horror series that I truly loved. I checked out the remake a while after it came out, and you know what? It was actually really good. It had problems, sure, but no more than the other movies in the series. I thought it was a refreshing take on the series despite not being too terribly different, the visual style was cool, and it remained true to the spirit of the series. I'm going to go out an another limb here and say it's a shame they didn't make any sequels, because I really liked what they were doing.

All horror aficionados can stone me now.

To get back to the topic at hand, I think remakes should be viewed with an open mind. Some can be good, some can be bad, just like original movies. Remakes like Pulse, The Wicker Man, and One Missed Call are bad. Remakes like The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, and now, Evil Dead are really good.

Calling Evil Dead 2013 "really good" is even kind of an injustice. This movie does exactly what it's supposed to (and what some remakes fail to do,) and that's recreating the experience of the original for a new generation. The Evil Dead (1981) was the first exposure that a lot of people had to really gory, really scary movies. Evil Dead 2013 is a hell of a lot gorier and scarier than most horror movies that are released to mainstream audiences these days. Far more important, though, is the fact that it's a lot of fun.

The setup is simple: A group of attractive 20-somethings go to a cabin in the woods, and it turns out the cabin might contain a few soul-feasting demons. These demons are released by an evil book, and all hell breaks loose. While this setup may possibly be seen as formulaic, this movie does it with such style and flair that it doesn't even matter. There aren't many movies that are as fun as this one. It takes itself seriously enough so that it doesn't fall into self-parody, but it's self-aware enough to go balls out with the gore and violence and do nothing more than put on a fantastically gory show for the audience.

Even though the movie's conventional, I wouldn't say it's predictable. With many slashers, anyone experienced with the genre can pick out the doomed characters and the survivors within minutes of the movie starting. With Evil Dead, though, it's really difficult t o tell who's going to live and who's going to die. In a slasher movie, a hint of unpredictability can make an astronomical difference.

Speaking of dying and the like, let's talk about violence and death for a minute. Such subjects are usually met with forlorn stares and sorrow, but Evil Dead handles the subject with the attitude of “Put on your party hats, we're going to have fun with blood.” The gore in this movie is incredibly shocking, slapstick, and entertaining. Most of the effects are practical, which is incredibly refreshing in a CGI age. What's more, Evil Dead's gore effects are among the best ever crafted. No, the blood isn't terribly realistic or anything, but that isn't the intent; the effects are colorful, vivid, gratuitous, and just plain fun to watch. Spraying blood, unfathomable festering wounds, it's all very over the top, and it looks great. This movie literally rains blood, and it's spectacular.

Gore isn't the only thing this movie has to show for. Everyone knows that gore doesn't make a horror movie good. While the gore is the main attraction in Evil Dead, the movie manages to create very legitimate tension, terror, and suspense. The characters aren't the most fleshed-out, but you feel legitimately scared for them. The atmosphere is foreboding and dripping with dread. The photography style, the fantastic soundtrack, and the implementation of genuine tension makes this movie very suspenseful.

For a slasher movie, the performances here are pretty damn remarkable. One shouldn't expect much going in to this kind of movie, but there are some genuinely good performances to be found inside. First mention, of course, must go to the fabulous Jane Levy, whose performance of Mia is about as good as a performance of a slasher victim/protagonist/antagonist (it's complicated) can get. Her role demands that she makes the audience feel sadness, pity, disgust, and absolute terror, and Ms. Levy seamlessly weaves all of these things into one fantastic performance.

Also great is Lou Taylor Pucci as Eric (AKA Hipster Jesus) who was easily my favorite character in the film. Eric is the one who is the catalyst for the emergence of the evil. He opens the book and, quite literally, hell breaks loose. In the scenes building up to this, Pucci creates a bitter, serious character who clearly holds on to a lot of resentment. He builds on this and shows really remarkable development throughout. This could be credited to the script, but Pucci's performance is what makes it so striking. The character comes to terms with his resentment. The regrets of unleashing the evil clearly breaks him apart inside. All of this is beautifully conveyed through Pucci's fantastic performance. The rest of the cast ranges from passable to good, but no one really sticks out as a poor actor, and in a slasher movie, that's more than a viewer can ask for.

If anything I've said in this review has piqued your curiosity, check out Evil Dead. For anyone who's into horror, it's an absolute must-watch. Balls-to-the-walls fun and excitement, spectacular effects, legitimate scares, and surprisingly good performances. Evil Dead is the best horror movie to come out so far in 2013, and it's going to be a hard one to top. I've never had more fun in a movie theater. I normally am wary of sequels, but I await the impending follow-up to this fantastic movie with bated breath.

8/10

Sadako 3D Review

Preface: This is probably more rambling than an actual "review." Nevertheless, you'll still learn my opinion the movie. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I'd like to do a Ring retrospective at some point, but that's a big project that would take me quite a while. For the sake of this review, I'll just give you a brief summary of my relationship with the Ring series.

The Ring was the movie that got me into horror. Ringu was the movie that got me into foreign cinema. The Ring cycle is one of my favorite series of books. I own all of the movies (including the more obscure Japanese sequels) and books, and I know pretty much everything there is to know about the series.

In short, it's kind of a big deal to me.

When I heard that Ring was being rebooted (based on new source material penned by the original author, no less,) I was terribly excited. I was certain that a Ring movie based on a new novel by Koji Suzuki would be excellent. The concept of 3D interested me as well. Most 3D I can take or leave, but I thought they'd be able to do some fun stuff with it in this movie.

One might say that I set myself up for disappoint, and yeah, I probably did; however, the word "disappointment" doesn't really convey my feelings for this movie. No, my feelings towards this movie are a bit more... vivid than that.

Betrayal. Disgust. Repulsion.

Absolute. Fucking. Hatred.

Before I start eviscerating this movie, I'll give you guys the basic premise of the movie. If any of the plot details are wrong, I blame shoddy subtitles, but I'm pretty certain I know all I need to know: Alright, there's this lady and her boyfriend. Lady, Akane, is a teacher. One day her students start talking about a "cursed video," and one of them soon dies afterwards. She has to track down the origin of the video because reasons. 

This brings us to the antagonist of the film. Put on your helmets, this is about to get stupid. 

So there's this guy, an internet artist. His name is Kashiwada, and he is the worst horror antagonist of all time. This guy, one day some people start trolling his site. This motivates him to not only kill himself, but record it and broadcast it on Nico Nico Douga. Oh, and also somehow embed this video with the curse of Sadako to bring death to anyone who views it.

The main antagonist of this movie is a guy who gets mad at the internet and decides to destroy the world.

Sadako 3D is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Disappointment? No, my disgust with this movie goes beyond the fact that I'm disappointed. My seething hatred toward this movie is not merely due to the fact that it pissed all over the Ring canon and legacy; that may be a part of it, but no, it goes deeper. This movie isn't simply a disgrace to the Ring series - it is a disgrace to everything that horror is about. There is no atmosphere to be found. The story is painful and the characters are unengaging and flat. The scares are cheap and telegraphed. 

The effects are among the worst I've ever seen. The effects in this movie are inexcusable; this is the biggest horror franchise in Asia, and they couldn't get enough of a budget to get effects that look better than an Asylum film? I swear on Suzuki's original novel that I'm not exaggerating. The CGI in this movie honestly looks like something The Asylum studio would have done in a weekend. This is due largely in part to the 3D effects. It's very obvious that the movie wasn't shot in 3D. No practical effects jump out at you. The only thing in this movie that exploits the 3D is the lazily-inserted CGI. Most of the 3D in this movie are random CGI moths flying around, Sadako's hair, and Sadako's hand coming out of screens. The 3D is a totally out-of-place gimmick, and looked nothing short of farcical when viewed in 2D.

What's most effective in J-horror is the atmosphere. These movies aren't supposed to be your typical "jump scare" affair. Some jump scares, sure, but mostly depending on atmosphere to creep the viewer out and make them paranoid. There is nothing "creepy" about Sadako 3D. All the scares are cheap jump scares of Sadako popping out and saying "boo," almost infallibly aided by the 3D. It's not scary, it's stupid.

The leads in this film are flat-out uninteresting. Akane and her boyfriend, Takanori Ando (the mere fact that he is in this movie absolutely blows the Ring canon apart by the way, but that's a story for another time,) are looking for the cursed video for some reason that escapes me. I don't know anything about these characters because development is entirely absent, but they're the ones we follow and eventually Takanori gets kidnapped by Sadako's hair, and Akane has to save him while he's trapped in an iPhone. She has to do that by accepting Sadako into herself because they're "the same" and the only way for Sadako's wrath to be stopped is by finding a "vessel."

This movie's stupid.

Oh, but it gets worse. There's a reason why Sadako needs Akane specifically. You see, Akane has supernatural powers. By that, I mean that she is able to scream and make glass shatter (because 3D HURR HURR) and I guess this wards off evil or something. I don't know, it doesn't make a single iota of sense. So Akane is saving people by screaming when Sadako's coming out of screens and killing them. Because she shatters the screens. Anyhow, since she and Sadako both have supernatural powers, even though the powers aren't alike in nature at all, Akane is the only one who can be used as a vessel for Sadako.

Spoilers ahead. Then the movie ends with Akane accepting Sadako and... Everything goes back to normal. Without any consequence. Seriously. I guess Sadako just wanted to be carried around in Akane's pocket for all of eternity. Whatever, it's not like the rest of the movie made sense.

Other characters? There's this one really unlikable greasy looking guy with curly hair who I guess ends up being evil? He shows up near the movie's last act out of nowhere and says some creepy things to Akane and hangs himself. So I guess he was supposed to be evil. Then there's seasoned by-the-books too-old-for-this-shit detective and his young maverick partner. They provide some of the best laughs in the movie despite being useless in the end, so I suppose that makes them the best characters.

You know how the scary, foreboding thing in Ringu was TV static? Yeah, well, in this movie, 404 Errors are our new monster.

This movie tries to make 404 Errors scary.

Moving on.

Though Kashiwada and the 404 Error are terrible antagonists, this movie's Sadako is downright insulting. First off, though I already know the answer, where did Sadako come from? Yes, that's a well-known fact in the Ring canon, but there is no way that this movie is a part of the same canon as the other movies. There's no logical explanation for why she's there or how Kashiwada even knows who Sadako is. Sadako has no character in this movie. She's just looking for a vessel. I don't know why. Everything that made Sadako scary in previous movies is gone. Sadako as a presence was terrifying in the other movies. Instead of that horrifying presence, this Sadako pulls people into TV's with her hair. No more eerily emerging from a TV and unveiling her gruesome figure. Oh and then there's roughly a thousand "failed"(?) Sadakos who turn into grasshoppers.

I promise, I couldn't make this up. The climax of the movie is Akane getting chased by hundreds of Sadako grasshopers. Whom she defeats by screaming. She's running for her life for probably a good ten or fifteen minutes, and she could have cut through all that just by screaming.

This whole movie could have been avoided if she just kept screaming.

What else can I even say? The acting's awful, the directing sucks, the cinematography is unremarkable, the plot is shamefully bad, the scares aren't scary, the music isn't good, and it offends every atom of my being. It's unintelligent and it talks down to its audience with a cheap 3D gimmick. Similar to a baby and car keys, this movie thinks that because it can dangle pretty 3D effects in front of an audience, they'll cheer. Too bad the effects that this movie hinges so desperately on are atrocious. Take away that one gimmick, and you're left with an insultingly vapid film that stains the horror genre.

No, not just the horror genre. This movie is a stain on everything that is filmmaking. 

Fuck this movie.

I can't think of a movie that has made me angrier than this. When describing bad movies, it's easy to fall into hyperbole. However, I say without any hint of exaggeration that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

The US Blu-Ray advertises this as "The Terrifying Conclusion."

Not only is it far from terrifying, but this "conclusion" has a sequel projected to come out this August.

God help us.

Stoker (2013) Review

It's no big secret that I'm a fan of Park Chan-wook's work, and I've been waiting for this film since before it was even filmed. When I saw the first trailer, I wasn't terribly impressed. When I learned that this script was Wentworth Miller's first effort, I was concerned. When I sat down to watch the movie and got 30 minutes in and I was still rolling my eyes at the dialogue, I figured the movie would end up being nothing more than a nicely directed bad script. What more can I expect out of a movie with such winning dialogue as "Hey Stoker, or should I say STROKER now... cuz that's what I hear your mom's been doing... to your uncle." I truly believed the script would fall flat through the entirety of the movie.

To my delight, I was mistaken.

Stoker tells the story of India Stoker (played by the astonishing and gorgeous Mia Wasikowska.) On her 18th birthday, she loses her father to a tragic auto accident. At the funeral, she meets her long-lost uncle Charlie (Mathew Goode) who informs her that he's going to be living with her and her mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) for a while. As his stay goes on, she finds herself becoming uncomfortable in ways she has never felt before. Soon enough, people start dying.

The only problem that I had with the movie was the script, which is unfortunately kind of a big problem. The plot itself is more than sufficient once it gets moving, but it takes a while for it to get to that point. In the movie's beginning stages, it seems like a pretty standard "spooky scary relative that we never heard of pops up" story, but as it goes on, the movie adds some really original twists that finally got me invested in the plot. One of these twists was a perverse sexual element that starts to overtake the characters. I won't spoil too much because it's pretty shocking. Be prepared to be appalled.

Enough about the plot though; while it holds its own, that isn't the strength of the movie. The real strength is in Park's directing. Had this movie been made by anyone else, I'm not sure if I would have liked it. Park's inclusion, however, made the film almost brilliant. The protagonist sees the world in an interesting way, and the way Park directs the movie puts the viewer in her world. All of her senses are hypersensitive. She sees things that others can't see, hears what others can't hear. In a particularly striking scene, she drowns out the sounds of women gossiping about her dead father by putting her ear to a table and rolling an egg around, causing the shell to slowly crumble. The sounds of women discussing her deceased father are drowned out to both India and the audience by the sounds of an eggshell crackling at a deafening volume. We as viewers experience what she senses, and it's brilliantly immersive.

Speaking of India, Wasikowska's performance is disturbed, sincere, innocent, and yet surprisingly sexy at times. We feel distant from all the other characters, which perfectly encompasses how India feels. Wasikowska is a joy to watch, captivating from the first time we see her running through a field to the bloody climax and bizarre epilogue. Kidman and Goode are fantastic as well, but Wasikowska brings the real power performance to this one.

In addition to Park's ability to immerse a viewer, he also knows where to point a camera. I saw this movie in a small theater with a low-quality projector, and I was still awed by how beautiful some of the shots were. The bizarre way the camera lingers on characters, the sharpening of a bloody pencil, the gorgeous landscape shots, blood splattering on delicate flowers, it's all very well-shot. You can tell that this movie is made by a Korean director. It feels like a Korean movie. The way it's shot, the way the characters deliver dialogue, the really bizarre choices made all feel very reminiscent of something Park directed in his native country.

If a theater near you is showing this and you don't mind a bit of bloody perversion, check it out. Park has crafted a nearly brilliant film in spite of being weighed down by a script that isn't always great. Rest assured, I probably won't be checking out the next "Written by Wentworth Miller" film unless this genius is behind the camera again. I truly hope that for Park's next venture into Hollywood cinema, he's given a script worthy of his legacy. Don't let my complaints of the script deter you, it really does pick up in the second half, it simply isn't spectacular nor worthy of a director of this calibre.

Beautiful, well-made, and dripping with both innocence and perversion, Stoker manages to overcome an iffy script through its flawless direction, intimate atmosphere, and stunning performances. With such strengths outweighing the weaknesses, it's hard not to forgive this film for its faults.

8/10

(On a much sadder note, the day that I made my first post to this blog, April 4th 2013, Roger Ebert died. A huge inspiration to me. I've been interested in critiquing film for as long as I can remember. The wit that he injects into his reviews rather than a flat analysis played a huge part in the way that I write my little reviews.

This inspires me to get better at reviewing, one of the things I love to do. Mr. Ebert as a whole was an inspiring man. Publishing more reviews than ever last year, despite his illness and handicap. Thank you, Mr. Ebert.

For his sake, I hope I Spit on Your Grave doesn't exist in whatever afterlife there may be.

RIP Rogert Ebert. You mean so much to aspiring writers such as myself.)