The Wedding Date -- 2005 -- PG

Another formulaic romantic comedy I was subjected to. This one had yet another creative twist to the old formula in which a woman goes to her half-sister's wedding, and in order to make her ex jealous (he is the best man), she hires an escort to be her date. 

There was more drama than comedy in this movie, and I was pleasantly surprised to get an unexpected plot twist at the end of the second act leading to the mandatory separation of the lovers before the final reconciliation at the end. The climax of the movie worked briliantly and though it is only 78 minutes of movie, it only means that the film had a good editor and director to keep the pacing up.

Overall, not too bad.

War of the Worlds -- 2005 -- PG-13

The modern Steven Spielberg adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds is a refreshing modern update of the classic story. It begins as an action flick, drops into a basic (almost low-budget-like) thriller for a sequence around the Act II/Act III mark, and then back to the action for Act III. While some have criticised this genre break mid-film, I think it works very well.

This film is generally paced very well, with only a few slow-downs in the second act, where you have to wonder what they're going to do next. Perhaps it is done this way on purpose to feel safe, but it slows down too much. The characters were fairly well-rounded, although the son's instense desire to go fight the machines is a little odd, considering he hadn't lost anyone close to him to their attack. It's a little too hot-headed, in my opinion, to be willing to leave his little sister in his father's hands, since he considers his father to be incompetent.

The imagery of the machines is very well conceived and true to the novel as well as the strange look of the aliens, although they are six-legged instead of three. Lots of cool shots of the various ways in which the aliens attack, and the first use of their heat rays is definitely something to behold as people pop into ashes before our eyes.

The trek the family takes is about 95% believable. Tom Cruise's character wants to get his kids to his ex-wife, so that sets up the journey. One leg of his journey that really turned his tables was a little hard to swallow that he would actually go there (even though he had planned to). Seeing the situation at the ferry, I think I would have turned and gone around inside of driving right into it. 

Overall, the film was a good watch. Spielberg still knows what he is doing, so the directing was fantastic. The reasoning of the novel is still intact. Great imagery, and believable plot. I would watch it again, given the chance. Worth checking out.

Willow -- 1988 -- PG

This little side bar project of George Lucas is a nice little fantasy film. It occasionally lags with the characters taking an inexplicable amount of time to accomplish things. It's not so much that there is a lot of screen time, but there are a few overnight things that made me wonder why these things would take so long. And then this Queen Bavmorda tries to instill a sense of urgency that her staff never delivers. Val Kilmer's character is never fully developed and his love interest is equally thin. The ritual is convoluted at best and though it factors into the final climax, we are left to pick up the pieces as to how.

It's a fun little quest movie that is better if you just let it flow and don't put too much thought into it.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- 1971 -- G

Watched the classic movie musical version of the Roald Dahl tale. Light-hearted numbers with some very dark elements and sinister subplots give this film an almost universal appeal. A G-rating only turns off the most hardcore gorehounds.

The focus for this one is the factory itself. We get a slow build-up of the maia of the golden tickets and mucho development of Charlie and the other four kids before we hit the factory. Wonka, himself, remains mostly a mystery throughout the factory, appearing mildly amused by the goings-on of the kids and their parents, seemingly expecting things to go a certain way.

One might wonder whether this adaptation would fit the author's vision of the film version of his book, but in this case, there's no wondering. Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay, and unlike other novelists gone screenwriters (*cough*StephenKing*cough*), Dahl is actually very good at adapting his own work to the screen and making it work well. This film ends very much like the book in that the elevator climbs into the sky and out of sight.

This is a great movie that brings us back to the movie musical days and shows what that style of movie is really capable of doing at its best.

The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog -- 1905

This was kind of silly. Obviously it's a play on words as the father is named U.B. Dam and one of the kids is I.B. Dam. We go through the whole Dam family and I hope for a story to follow, but once we get through the family, it's over. I'm thinking: "What's the point of that?"

After some research, I may have to find this one again, though. Apparently, there was supposed to be a short bit with this Dam family after the intro, and I didn't see that.

H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds -- 2005 -- R

Not to be confused with the Spielberg version that came out the same month, this film is from a company called The Asylum that works with a bit of a lower budget than that of a small, undeveloped country like Spielberg tends to have at his disposal. 

Ok, on the whole, it was no where near as bad as a lot of people tend to rant on about. Sure, it isn't perfect, but those films are very few and far between, and we could punch holes in the Godfather if we wanted to. But I enjoyed the film as a whole. Most of the detractors of this film either never watched it, or for some reason rely on special effects to tell a story.

The good parts. Gotta start with the good. I felt the main character, George, was decently rounded for the genre. We understood his journey, and could follow the plot very easily. He hooked up with the priest (pastor?) Victor, who was also a well thought out character and in some respects better rounded than George was. Kerry seemed a bit thrown in to give George someone to talk to for awhile, but on the whole, he was ok. Kind of threw me off when they separated. 

The effects were by no means distracting and did not take away from the experience at all. If nothing else, it showed what the company is capable of. Many of the sets give a good appearance to a big budget disaster movie, so well done there. 

The writer/director seems to have a bit of a penchant for inside jokes. George Herbert, for example, as in Herbert George Wells being one of those. 

My prime beef was with the driving point of the plot. It just seemed a bit upside down. Guy's wife and child go to D.C. while he stays at home. Bad stuff happens, and he wants them to stay put while he goes to them. I do like what one of the characters brought up in that it would make more sense for him to stay home while they came to him. He travels in the hope that they will be waiting for im on the step of the Lincoln Memorial in the capital of the superpower of the free world. I know it make for a cool end shot to see D.C. rampaged, but it just seems that it would have been a easier to swallow premise for him to be away from home and they waiting for him to arrive there. Now, the home could have been in Washington, D.C. to still achieve those end shots, and actually most of the film would have played almost exactly how it played, but the overall feeling would have been "I have to get home to them" as opposed to "I will meet them on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial if she got my message during the 30 seconds of time when the power worked and I was able to get through to her. I have faith she'll wait there." 

I'm also not a big fan of blind coincidence. A lot of these coincidences could have been easily rectified with a setup somewhere else in the film before the big use of it occurred. 

The chances of someone catching something through a telescope without actually spotting it first is very small. Telescopes are very difficult devices to use well, and someone just happening to look through one at the exact spot at the exact time something just happened to pass in front of the lens's field of vision is hard to swallow. Better would have been spotting something in the sky, repositioning the telescope, and then looking at it. This would also have helped the hard to accept "I think I'll look through a telescope (generally accepted as a night device with the exception of peeping Toms) during the day." 

The power surge thing was a bit of a strange point since it allowed for some coincidences. When the power comes on, the phone instantly rings. This means that the power is surging at the same time at points hundreds of miles apart or that person just happened to call at the exact moment the power would be back on at home. 

One way to have gotten around this one as a coincidence would have been the flip-flopping of the plot that I mentioned earlier. Another way that would be ok with the existing plot would have been for the caller to mention that their power just came back on or something. It's weak, but it would have worked. 

The boat was a bit of a strange find as well. It was the only one on that shore (wherever that shore was), no one was using it, and Kerry disappeared before George got in it. Also, I got the idea that we were in North Carolina, and him going to D.C. means he has to travel North. The only river in the world that travels North is the Nile, meaning George put himself a night in the wrong direction by riding this boat. 

The setup would have been to mention where they are and why there were boats here. Also would have worked if more people were taking these boats and it woudl have helped to see Kerry get separated from him. 

The final big coincidence was remeeting Kerry and the Lieutenant turned Major. The chance of him running into them after the path he'd taken was incredibly microscopic. Add to this that the scene really did not serve to drive the plot forward at all, but give a finality to Kerry's character, something that (given his end) was rather unnecessary from a dramatic standpoint. I could see a single point to that scene, and that is Samuelson's speech about the scientist's winning the war, not the infantry. This speech could have been in the first meeting very easily and this later scene trimmed right out. I would have trimmed it just to get away from the coincidental factor. 

As I understood the rabies angle, by injecting this into that one alien (another coincidence the character was praying for, since they had no way of knowing whether they'd see an alien close enough to actually inject it), they might somehow kill off the entire invading force? Unless every alien in the world were linked together somehow, this would not have worked at all. Better to stick with the book reasoning and have our native bacteria wipe them out. Sure, it isn't dramatic, and it doesn't involve our main character actually doing it, but it's an adaptation and in the book, so people more easily accept that. 

A few other things that got to me. Sometimes the aliens shot people, sometimes they dragged them off. There would need to be some kind of reasoning behind their choices. Otheriwse, it's easier to just pick one or the other. The weird alien acid slime that did in Victor was out of nowhere as well. I got the purpose (I think), but it just seemed like it was thrown in. 

I did like the green death mist thing; that was cool. 

Ok, there it is. At the end of the film, I did find it to be a good job. It's actually worth watching as long as you take it on its own merits and don't draw comparisons between it and the bigger budget version with Tom Cruise.

When A Stranger Calls -- 2006 -- PG-13

This is based on an urban legend that always freaks me out. A girl is babysitting and she gets calls on the house phone threatening her, and asking if she has checked on the children. She finally calls the cops and they trace the call. They call back and tell her to get out because the call is coming from inside the house on the house's second line. She runs upstairs to find the children dead and she makes a daring escape. Now, this is Hollywood, and you can't kill children, so let's have a look at how this legend translated.

The parts of the film that played the legend worked fairly well. It generated a real feeling of creepiness as the calls played out, and the final call from the police relating that the calls are coming from inside the house was well placed, though it took awhile to get there. The whereabouts of the stranger were completely secret and we had no idea where he was or if he would spring out at some point, so that worked.

And that was the short list of what worked in this movie. Kick off your shoes and pop the popcorn because what didn't work goes on for awhile. By the numbers:

1. This girl is to babysit to work off going over her minutes at a super secluded mega house with a housekeeper...who was apparently unable or unwilling to babysit even though she lives there.

2. The alarm went off early in the film, but even though the housekeeper is no where to be found, she blows off the police. Ok.

3. Her friend enters through an open garage door without setting off the alarm. She still doesn't call the police even though that clearly points to what set off the alarm.

4. Her friend is somehow whacked outside the house...when the stranger is supposed inside already.

5. At one point, the Caller ID showed her friend's cell phone number calling, but when she answered, it was the stranger. She still didn't call the police.

6. She freely wanders the house looking for trouble when she feels like she is in danger. Wouldn't staying in one place be better?

7. Will someone please show this girl where the light switches are?

8. We've established the danger. She's scared. She's got the police coming to keep her company. What does she do when she notices someone in the guesthouse (who is supposed to be their son who never announces when he's coming home)? She calls the guesthouse and leaves a detailed message about everything she is doing.

9. But wait! In the worst move in the entire film, she LEAVES THE HOUSE and runs to this guesthouse to check out who is there. She doesn't know this son character. Maybe he's the freak. Then the stranger calls the unlisted number of the guesthouse. Hm, where could he have found this number? On the fridge, maybe? Then she runs right back to the house again.

10. This film had no character development. It gave us just enough of everyone to tell the story, but nothing to really connect to. It had a slew of different characters, most of which went unused. Even the people she was working for and her best friend were as good as extras in this one.

11. It had this whole bit where she got a popsickle out of the freezer and she failed to eat it, so she threw it away. What was the point of that series of scenes?

So we've got a lot of flaws here. Tons of stuff that happened for the sake of attempting some scariness, but it was so contrived, that all fear was offset by laughing at the film. It had a good premise, but some desperately poor execution.

Wicker Man -- 1973 -- R

With the coming of a Nic Cage version of this film, I thought I'd give the original here a watching. The 70's were an experimental time for the film industry, and filmmakers loved being able to buck the 40 year old production with the advent of the new rating system. This was no exception to that rule.

We start off with a police officer going to an island in the United Kingdom to investigate the supposed disappearance of a girl. He continues to get no cooperation from the natives, though as he uncovers more information, they at least agree with the information he provides to them. The island is run by a cult religion with all the standard deviants to regular religion, such as nature worship and human sacrifice.

The policeman professes his devotion to Christianity early on, and that becomes one of the main conflicts within the larger framework of the search for the missing girl. It does get preachy at times, and his character can be admired for overstepping his authority on several occasions for the sake of preaching Jesus, but it's all not overwhelming.

It has some moments where the pacing slows down a lot, and we just want to move on, but it doesn't necessarily drive me to distraction. A better soundtrack would have helped this a lot.

When we hit the climax, we get a big twist, and anyone who has seen enough of these types of movies can guess how it ends. I got a little concerned that the dragging in the end was dragging a bit too long, but it got cleared up neatly when the "title character" was revealed.

It had some excellent character development of the lead and the island served as a character in and of itself with Lord Summerisle as the head. There was a ton of supporting characters from all over the island, and they served as little snippets of developing the religion more than individual characters.

Weird ending. Weird movie. But altogether pretty decent in all its weirdness.

While You Were Sleeping -- 1995 -- PG

Well, one can't say my viewing experiences aren't well rounded as my wife regularly has me watching chick flicks with her. This time, the film of choice was about a woman who finds a man she has never spoken to to be her dream guy. Day after day, he comes through her line and on Christmas, he talks to her. Now don't get excited, he says, "Merry Christmas," but shortly thereafter, he is mugged and pushed on the train tracks.

The second act follows the guy in a coma, and the girl meeting his family and being mistaken for his fiancee. And a lot of meetings there are. She finds his extensive family to be a welcome change to her life of solitude, and plays along because she vlaues them and is also told by someone who finds out that revealing the truth might be harmful to them. And in a clear cut, 3 act movie way, the third act kicks off once all of this has occurred to him waking from his coma and everything coming out.

Simplicity is always the redeeming factor in these types of movies and simplicity is in full force here as well. This allows the characters to benefit from being normal people and letting the audience fill out the norm of their characters after they give you specifics. It makes them a bit more relatable than someone fully unique. Then again, these types of movies kind of allow a bit of vicarious living through them as well, but I digress.

It's a cute film that has a shred of uniqueness to it and allows a good viewing experience.

The Whole Nine Yards -- 2000 -- R

Who would have thought a movie with contract killing as a centerpiece would be a comedy? This one actually worked.

You have a mild-mannered (and rather nervous) dentist who has a hitman move in next door to him. He recognizes the hitman from the newspapers the hitman appeared concerning his arrests and crimes, and tells his wife about it. Well, his family life is not so good, and his wife says they should turn him in, and get the reward to pay off some debts. The dentist is not keen on this, but goes to Chicago anyway, not actually planning on contacting anyone. Well, when he is contacted, he is in it up to his eyeballs and doesn't begin to understand why.

This movie uses not only slapstick physical humor, but more than a few plot elements are very funny as well. Serious topics are dealt with in blase fashion, and actions that would be dire and pressing in a thriller are presented almost like punchlines.

The overall plot is well constructed and it has a fair share of twists and turns along the road to keep it interesting. I'd love to discuss these little twists, but if I told you about them, they would be spoilers. The reveal is part of the fun here.

As for characters, we actually get some decently rounded people. There are a lot of characters in the film, but they all get just enough screentime to engage you into their lives. We're not talking Godfather level of development, granted, but they're very understandable.

In the end, it was a very funny and engaging film, and is worth watching.

The Whole Ten Yards -- 2004 -- PG-13

Sometimes, I like a film that recognizes its own shortcomings and comments on them. Such was the case very early on in this film when a character said something, performed an action making the comment completely impossible, and then another character said exactly wht I did when I observed it. Trouble is, this film is full of those little moments.

The plot here is the father of the mobster killed in the first film gets out of prison and is looking for a little revenge. He doesn't believe for a second that Jimmy is dead, and so he sets his sights on the only person with any knowledge, Oz. How he learns this is a complete mystery and one that is never fully answered to any level of satisfaction. It's probably the single biggest plot hole in the entire film, and it is the one that sets it all in motion. But once it gets going, it's not too bad, and we have our share of little surprises along the way, most of which leave us hanging until the final tie up, which works fairly well.

As a sequel to a film that worked very well with slapstick humor and humorous plot devices, this one followed up with lots and lots of slapstick and character quirks with only a handful of humorous plot moments (the bit with "hurting himself falling down the stairs" is especially notable here, but overused). The big problem is that you can only watch Matthew Perry get hit in the head or fall down so many times before you start wanting to see something else happen.

It's an amusing film, and one that gives you a decent evening of movie-watching as long as you don't expect anything too deep from it. It doesn't come close to living up to its first part, but that seems to be a trend in sequels.

The Wicker Man -- 2006 -- UR

I watched the Unrated DVD version of the film, though I guess the "shocking alternate ending" it advertised would be more shocking if I had seen the original...um..."not quite so shocking" ending.

Going into watching this film, I had seen the 1973 version, and I'd read a lot (a whole lot) of disparaging comments about this one. Most of these negative comments were from devotees of the original version, rather than an unbiased criticism of the film by itself.

As most know, this film involves a cop who is summoned to an island named for its administrator, Summersisle, to investigate the missing child of his ex-fiancee. He runs into road block after road block among the island's inhabitants which, understandably, frustrates him to no end.

As a stand alone film, it isn't a bad movie. The characters aren't too poorly constructed, though they could have been better. The plot seems to flow fairly well from point to point, which is primarily Edward trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Yes, quite a few liberties were taken with the original Shaffer script, but these liberties seemed to tie the story together a bit differently than the original version.

As with any film, there were some rather silly moves that make one shake their head. One big question mark was why go to the island to look for the girl when he saw her in a car accident? Sure, mom said she couldn't get off the island, but clearly he saw her, so clearly she did. I would think a local investigation should come first. That's the biggest point I can't wrap my head around that hurts this version. 

THIS PARAGRAPH CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS. For another problem, why kill the airplane pilot? He did what they wanted him to do, and he was the only one to bring them supplies. Now who's going to do that? He checked several doors in Summersisle's house looking for her...except the door to the room where she was, and he was right across from it when he ran out. Why not try that last door? Didn't make a lot of sense. There were some things on the ending that tossed me for a loop as well, but one could argue it was part of the ritual. There were quite a few things one can argue over as odd during the island portion, but nearly all of them were setups by the town to lead him on the path they wanted him to be on. Suffice to say, it's not perfect, but few films are.

So, in the end, I did not watch a movie that stunk. If this shared the slate with the likes of Manos, Date Movie, or Friday the 13th Part VIII, I would be the first to say so, but it wasn't that bad. If you have seen the original, prepare for a different film with a similar plot.

When Harry Met Sally -- 1989 -- R

Two romantic comedies in a row? I must be losing my mind. Then again, the last week has afforded me nearly a dozen movies watched, so I probably have lost my mind. January averaged one a day (at least from the perspective of my reviews). This one has Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal as its leads, and what we end up with is something that is a little against the grain while following the tried and true RomCom formula.

Harry and Sally met right out of college as they carpooled from Chicago to New York City. During this trip, Harry was going out with Sally's best friend, and while Sally commented that she and Harry might be friends in New York, Harry dissented, commenting that men and women can't be friends. Five years later, they met again on an airplane ride, and they barely remembered each other until recognition set in. They were both looking to be married to other people and they shared a flight discussing this and other things. Another five years pass and Harry and Sally meet for the third time. She is single, her relationship having crashed, and he is divorced and a little bitter. They decide to be friends (since Harry amends that men and women can be friends as long as he doesn't find her attractive), and so begins the development of their relationship -- finally.

During the course of the next year, they try to hook each other up with their best friends, but only succeed in hooking their best friends up with each other, leaving Harry and Sally still single, but attending the wedding for their friends. We also get one of the most memorable scenes and lines in movie history with Meg Ryan's mock orgasm and the subsequent comment from another patron, "I'll have what she's having." Harry's long-winded tirades about life are never boring, and the increasing tension between Harry and Sally as they refuse to be with each other makes for an air of uniqueness in this genre (as it is usually about the development of a relationship on the part of at least one of the parties, rather than a complete refusal from both).

Discussion about something other than the movie's plot makes for better characters, and this one delivers some characters that are a cut above the norm, thanks to Harry and Sally discussing their lives, opinions, etc., rather than something expositional related to the immediate plot. Of course, it isn't perfect as Harry and Sally are the pivot point for everything, so even their best friends are left out in the development freezer when it comes to getting more than names and a life between the credits.

We get some fair uniqueness when it comes to the plot since we get our pair drawn together while they try to pull apart. They become friends only during the course of the show, and only work to maintain a friendship, but never anything more. The audience knows they should move on, but the characters refuse to. It's a wonderful little give and take on the part of the filmmakers to build that type of tension. We do get the inevitable third act separation before the climactic and satisfying ending, so parts of it are quite standard, but it has enough to stand as one of the better ones in the RomCom category.

So this is a good one. It depends almost 100% on character development and progression instead of a clever outer plot of something big going on that the characters need to handle while dealing with each other. Really nothing happens here except the story of Harry and Sally, and since drama should come from character, this definitely gives this one a leg up on the competition.

Interview With A Serial Killer (White Angel) -- 1993 -- NR

I ended up with this one because while I was perusing the titles on Netflix, the synopsis listed there sounded interesting to me. Like so many titles I watch, that's all the info I had to go on. What I got was a film with some very interesting points to it, along with some really weird stuff to make it work.

Basically, we have a woman who is a writer who kills her husband one dark and stormy night, and ever since she has been unable to turn out another novel. Meanwhile, London is besieged with a serial killer the papers are calling the White Angel, due to his/her Modus Operandi of killing only blonde women dressed in white. It turns out that this writer had killed her husband and bricked him up in the wall of her house and this fact is discovered by the White Angel killer, who threatens to turn the writer in for murder unless she writes a book about the White Angel's life. It was a very nice spin for twenty minutes.

A fair job is done from there to keep the plot going, but it can hardly be said to be running at full tilt. In fact, several very strange things happen in the course of the plot that make you question its validity. The weirdest of them all is the computer that matches fingerprints. They find fingerprints of the White Angel on a weapon used in one of its murders, and this is what prompts the Angel to ask our writer girl to write the biography. This is placed into a database that checked about a print per second in a database of 100,000. So they have this computer working day and night for a month to match this print. Seriously? So no other cases come up that would require the use of this computer. Very weird.

In addition, either this killer is really dumb (which most serial killers aren't) or just blind as the writer got away with a whole lot of stuff that I doubt anyone would get away with in the presence of any other human being, especially one whose moves are being watched. A particular oddity was this safety deposit box key. It looks like the writer made an impression of this key early on, but she seemed to have to do the same thing later as well. She acquired the second impression in a really weird way and had to return it to its place is a highly unlikely fashion as well, It didn't make a lot of sense that she'd even remotely get away with that.

Anyway, our leads were fine character-wise as the writer and the killer engaged in diatribes related to their individual issues of knocking people off. It served to get insight into who they were, and the interview setting of several of these scenes served to make what would normally be blatant exposition fit into the fabric of the storyline.

In the end, it wasn't a bad film at all. It had some fairly tense moments, but these were balanced by the occasional bit of weirdness of plot or action that continued to knock the film down from good to just ok.

Wife vs. Secretary -- 1936

Now there's a risque title for 1936, not to mention a bit of a risque subject. Adulterous affairs were quite forbidden under the Production Code of 1933, still relatively new at this time, but this film skirts the line so close, it might have gotten away with a little more than several years later.

The plost involves a case of mistaken actions. Van Standhope (V.S. for short) has a beautiful wife who he loves very much, and a blonde bombshell of a secretary who's simply a hard working girl who is good at her job. Van treats his secretary with respect and she's not "that kind of secretary." He also loves his wife, but when he comes into a deal that he feels he must keep secret, his secretary is involved, but his wife isn't. This sets up a serious of double entendre situations that heavily imply infidelity, but is nothing more than the case of a guy who's working too hard and a hard working secretary supporting him all the way. The hilarity gets worse and worse as the implied situations send the whole situation right into the implied gutter leaving the wife no choice but to consider leaving him.

The characters are a little on the thin side only providing us with the bare minimum to care, but at the same time, the characters are people we can practically relate to and become through the course of the film, so more info might have taken away from the experience. The setups are nothing short of ingenious in this one sending our poor wife one mixed signal after another, not to mention all the raised eyebrows each situation gives. He really needed to learn the addage of "abstain from the appearance of sin."

Add to all this a shot of a very young Jimmy Stewart as the boyfriend of the secretary. Boy doesn't even have lines in his face at that age. With Clark gable in the lead prior to his Gone With The Wind hoopla, it makes for an overall enjoyable film, kind of like watching Meg Ryan in Amityville 3-D.

So it was definitely a good watch, and very funny to boot.

Witness For The Prosecution -- 1957

And again, we come in with a year that has paired movies. 1957 was the year another court play adaptation came out: 12 Angry Men. That one is definitely a smaller scale, but our tendency to have genre films come out in pairs goes back years. This one had no disappointment to offer within its frames, and even ended with a word from the theatre management requesting the audience not to divulge the secret of the ending for the enjoyment of your friends. Far be it from me to deny the request of the 1957 theatre management. This comes as no surprise, really, as the final five minutes of the film contains no less than 3 twists.

The story, itself, is fairly simple. Based on an Agatha Christie play, the film follows the trial of a man accused of killing a rich, old woman who had taken a liking to him. While there appears to be no initial motive, one comes out in that day's paper showing that the woman had recently rewritten her will to bequeath her 80,000 pound estate to the man (and back then, that was a lot of money). Throughout, we get lots of backstory of the man, his wife, and the old woman to show how everything came to pass, but the man maintains his innocence about the killing stating he got home before the murder occurred.

The big question mark is his wife, who says she is repeating what her husband told her to say about when he got home, etc. We learn that under British law, a wife cannot testify against her husband, and the lawyer says that the testimony of a loving wife carries little weight. So what happens? The title character turns out to be the wife who is proven to be married to someone else in Germany, not in love with her supposed husband on trial, and then surprises everyone by telling a completely different story than she told the police -- one that implicates the man in the murder. And that's where I leave you.

The characters are very well developed here, and the relationship between the lawyer and his nurse is nothing short of hilarious. It's a drama by nature, but it doesn't stop at any chance of grabbing a laugh from the audience, and I found myself laughing out loud at regular intervals at the antics and audacity of some of the characters. Even the judge uttered some deadpan lines that were very funny in the situations.

The plot was meticulously constructed and interest was maintained throughout the potentially most boring part of the movie: the trial. Since the characters were setup so well, we just felt like we were watching people we knew go into a hard situation, and we watched their idiosyncrasies play out in this stressful environment. Without the development of the characters, the trial would have been beyond boring, but as it was, it was well done and interesting.

This is a very easy film to watch and very enertaining despite its simplicity. It has some good, well rounded characters with individuality and personality that constantly comes through within its plot. When all truths are revealed in the end, it is both shocking and anticipated, but ultimately satisfying and the only way it could have gone. Very excellent film.

White Noise -- 2005 -- PG-13

Wow, I watched a movie AND I'm writing about it. Can you believe it? Well, it's been a little while now, and it's high time I started in on one of my favorite hobbies: commenting about the movies I've seen.

Here we have White Noise, which is a PG-13 "horror" flick out of the recent rash of J-horror spin-offs. While I don't know if this was based on a Japanese movie, it has some of the same shock moments we've come to expect, but not quite the level of constant dread the J-horrors tend to bring out.

The story here is about a man who loses his young wife in a mysterious accident where she disappears for five weeks before turning up dead after being apparently washed away by the tide. During this bit, he runs across the obligatory crazy guy who raves about being contacted by his wife and he knew she was dead before she turned up, which leads our distraught husband to seek out crazy guy in curiosity after receiving momentary contact from his late wife.

The crazy touts a known phenomenon known as EVP (Electronic Voice Phenemena, which is conveniently defined at the beginning of the film to help set us up), and just when you think it's somewhat interesting, yet creepy, we get zinged with a real shocker: did that static get all corporeal on us for a moment there? The real mystery begins about halfway in once our guy meets up with Mr. Crazy which is a bit long.

While the film offers some good shock moments, and a handful of suspense, it sets up a few mysteries and never resolves them. Without being a spoiler, we get zinged pretty good in the climax, and then not given a good resolution leaving us to wonder what was REALLY going on during this whole thing. Was there a point? Was there a plan? Was our lead meant to be in all this or was it an accident? All these unanswered questions served to hurt the ending of a halfway decent film for me.

Beyond this, it was decent enough. The lead had a good pain to feed off of and lead him through the film. There were enough curiosities to keep me interested. In fact, it was not a bad film at all except for the slew of unresolved issues we finally ended with. It might at least make you look at the static in your TV a little differently if you don't have one of those modern jobs that just goes to blue.