1.25.2010

44. Blood Creek
45. The Lovely Bones
46. Palmetto

Yesterday was a terribly gloomy day. We had torrential rains with wind gusts of 60 mph. In short, it was the perfect day to just stay in the house. Of course, that means I had to go out on more than one occasion. Here's what I managed to watch when I was actually doing what I felt like doing...


Blood Creek was the opening flick for the day. This is the 2009/Joel Schumacher Blood Creek. Not the 2006 version or any of the other movies with the same name. This one deals with the Nazi obsession with the occult. It starts off in 1936 with a family being contacted by the Third Reich to host a visiting scholar. They agree to do so not knowing that they will wind up sucked into matters of the occult. Flash forward 70-odd years later and the experiments are still going on.

This flick was fairly interesting. The occult and things of that nature tend to fascinate me. The movie had enough of that to keep me engaged for the entire runtime. The movie was pretty fast paced too with the 90 minutes going by pretty quickly. The stars here were Dominic Purcell and Henry Cavill. Both were solid in their roles. For a movie that was more or less dumped straight to video, it was much better than I was anticipating. Check it out.


We followed up Blood Creek with Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Yes, another screener. This is the film adaptation of the novel by Alice Sebold. It tells the story of 14 year old murder victim Susie Salmon. She serves as the narrator of the movie.

I hate to say it but this movie was just fucking terrible. I wanted to like it but I just couldn't bring myself to do so. It was overly long and boring. Clocking in at around two hours, it just kind of wandered aimlessly. A solid 30 minutes could have been trimmed and made for a better picture. However, director Jackson seems to have this thing for epics. He needs to either stick with the Lord of the Rings stuff or go back to his earlier days directing cheesy gore flicks. Because what he did here just isn't working. If he wanted to turn this into an epic, he could have stuck with some of the subplots from the novel rather than going the route he went. He overloads the movie with CGI shots of the "in-between", Susie's personal heaven. The shots are terrible, looking like something straight out of a calendar. It's overbearing and just poorly done. The performances aren't much better. The only two good things to come of this are Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci's performances. Mark Wahlberg was simply Mark Wahlberg. I know he's capable of doing better so he was another disappointment. Rachel Weisz' character isn't given much to do at all before disappearing for a good percentage of the movie. And Susan Sarandon as the grandmother was horrid. There was a comedy scene midway through that had me rolling my eyes and talking to the screen like I was in a ghetto theater.

These were two of the longest hours I've ever spent in my life. Skip this stinker. It's just not worth it.


We wrapped up the evening fairly early with Palmetto, a 1998 neo-noir starring Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue and Gina Gershon.

Much better! This was a pretty good movie. I'd imagine most of the folks reading have never even heard of this one. I vaguely remember seeing trailers when it came out but that was about all I could remember. Harrelson plays a reporter who uncovered a huge corruption scandal in the small town of Palmetto. For his trouble, he winds up being framed for accepting a bribe and is forced to serve two years in prison. Upon his return to society, he quickly finds himself wrapped up in a fake kidnapping scheme hatched by Shue. Things do not quite go as they're supposed to. There are double crosses and all types of shenanigans.

The story is good. There are enough twists and turns to keep you engaged throughout. Harrelson is solid, as usual. Shue and Gershon are two of my favorites. Shue shines here, oozing sex appeal. Chloe Sevigny and Michael Rapaport are also excellent. I found this one for $3 at Big Lots. It was well worth it...I'd have paid more. Check it out.