Paranormal Activity

Welcome to the Blair Witch Project of the 2000's. This movie, though a great viral marketing campaign, and first movie to have a concrete idea since the Blair Witch Project, managed to scare/enterain many. This movie could have been made by anyone at any cost. However, Oren Peli manages to make the idea sound throughout. He doesn't doze off on his idea.

In my opinion, no movies are scary. They are fake. As long as I know that, they don't bother me. This movie was decent enough because it didn't use the jump film crap that other horror movies use. You know, when they move the camera fast and jumpy and shift it to make things seem more scary as they catch you off guard.

This movie "documents" the life of a couple being haunted by a demonic presence at night. Kate, the woman in the movie has been haunted by this demon for years. Her boyfriend, Micah, determined to figure this out, decides to film every day/night of their lives. They slowly catch the demonic presence more and more each day. Finally it gets serious, and that's as far as I'll go.

This movie is good if you go with someone who scares easy as it will entertain you more. However, as with all low budget movies, the acting is sub-par as is the effects. But hey, for $15,000 total, this movie was done well.

Don't expect too much, and 90% of you will be scared.

I rate this movie 7.0 out of 10. [Buy Paranormal Activity Today]

Where The Wild Things Are

To start, and I still feel this way. James Gandolfini's character, as with all his characters post-Sopranos make me imagine they are all Tony Soprano in a different form. And in this movie, he was the monster version of Tony Soprano. Just weird. I can't get that whole idea out of my head.

Getting past that, Spike Jonze did an excellent job in translating this movie from a book to the big screen. I think it is incredibly hard to do, given the length of the book. However, little boy Max runs away from home as he is frustrated and ends up arriving at an island inhabited by giant monsters. He lives with them as their king, and eventually realizes he must return home.

There were a ton of voices in this movie, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, and Chris Cooper to name a few. The movie had very nice effects. The plot was actually managable.

There was a problem, for some in this part. It was and wasn't for kids. The movie goes from kid friendly to scary and back. It is much deeper than the book was ever meant to be. It was gravely realistic in thought and kind of dark. So this inconsistency, I think, weighed down the movie.

If you enjoyed the book, and want to see an interesting movie, but don't expect too much. Give it a watch as a matinée movie.

I rate this movie 7.3 out of 10.