Hostel Movie, A View To The Frightening Dark Side Of Human Ultimate Search For Excitation.

I had seen a poster referring to the latest, frightening movie around. It showed a drill entering the mouth of a poor guy sitting in some kind of torture chamber. Just by seeing the scene on the poster it looked really scary and hard to contemplate, would I dare to watch the movie?… The answer was “yes”. Lately, for some reason, I’ve been in the mood of watching scary, bloody, movies. Maybe it’s because lately Hollywood has been in the mood also, just count how many scary movies have been around for the last three years and you will realize they have been more than a few, they have been… a lot.

But coming back to Hostel movie; I decided to go and see how scary this “new scary” movie really was. The theater was not totally full, but there was much more people than I thought, somehow the movie trailers had attracted a good deal of audience. After a scene that seemed taken from a deep hell’s dungeon with a dirty man cleaning the gray floors of the tortures room, the beginning of the movie showed us a group of guys, two American students and a man from Island inside some kind of club in Amsterdam, doing what most tourists do in that famous European port. After a couple of scenes in those clubs, including the leaving behind of the sensual services of a gorgeous blond by one of the American guys, they arrive to their hostel only to realize the door is locked and they would have to wait outside until down to regain access to their room. But after an incident with the neighbors they find help and a roof for their heads that night thanks to the good manners of a strange guy that invites them to his room. Again the scenes of drugs and sex are present all around, I wonder if everything in Amsterdam is really sex and drugs, sincerely I doubt it.

This strange guy has a secret he wants to share with his new friends. If they want to spend a really good time with all the pleasure and excitation women can give they are in the wrong place, they should go East. There is a town in Eastern Europe where beautiful women abound and they are willing to spend their time and senses with you. Obviously he arises the curiosity of these young men and they eagerly ask for directions. He carelessly gives them the address of a very special hostel, the place where they will find all those amenities. Once morning arrives they are on the road, let’s better say, on the rails.

They travel by train as most Europeans do and everything goes fine except for an incident that introduces us to one of the main characters of the film. He is a business man that travels in the same cabin and that happens to be heading to the same location they are going. He is a man that seems to be in his sixties and he shows to the world with a peaceful appearance; though there is something that makes the audience doubt about his intentions. Specially after a shameful incident that forces him to leave the cabin.

Some time afterwards our three adventurous guys have arrived to their destination. It is a typical Eastern Europe small town full of charming old houses and brick streets. As they approach the address they were given by that strange guy back in Amsterdam the expectation of the fun ahead lets them have the best of moods. Now they are inside the Hostel, they are asked for their passports and then they are assigned to their room.

They find the first surprise of the trip once they have entered their room, they gladly realize they will be sharing the room with two beautiful ladies that seem to be perfectly alright standing nude in their presence. All seems to be according their expectations of the so highly recommended town. They spend the night at one of the clubs, go home with the ladies but suddenly, as an army of dark clouds in the sky, everything that seemed so perfect starts to reconfigure into the form of a nightmare.

Oli, the guy from Island, has disappeared without a trace after leaving with one woman they met at the club. Paxton and Josh prefer to think that he left without notice than thinking about something bad happening to him. They try to return to the good times at the club with their girlfriends but things go wrong again. Josh starts feeling sick and leaves the club. He barely makes it to the Hostel where they are waiting for him. Scene by scene we start to realize there something very wrong happening in that town. Specially when the head of Oli appears on screen has a scene coming from a hell dungeon.

Now is Josh’s turn, he will meet with his friend from the train again, Jan Vlasák. But now it won’t be at the club surrounded by pretty ladies. Now he will be his merciless torturer in one of the chambers of that horror land. The movie shows how Vlasák satisfies his instincts and frustrated vocation as a surgeon by cutting Josh’s body at will with the movements and calm of the most sadistic butcher.

Now there is only Paxton left; there was something in the drink he took and he has fallen asleep inside the restroom at the club saving his life for the moment. Everything is confusing, everyone has left; even their girlfriends are gone and no one knows about Josh. He goes to the police but they just take the case nominally, later we would learn they are also a slab in the horror chain of this salvage town.

Walking one of the streets Paxton passes by his ex-girlfriend that looks nothing like the nights before, she is changed and there are no more kisses. He asks her about his friends and after some thought she accedes to take him where they are. They take a taxi and follow a road that takes them to an old factory building that seems to be only ruins. But there is something more than ruins inside, the building is also a home of human misery.

There are men all around, some entering others leaving, always protected by escorts. It is a multimillionaire gathering for the most cruel of the games. Human hunting and torturing as a way of excitation and relax for the powerful. Paxton passes by the chambers where the most despicable acts are being performed; and suddenly he realizes he has fallen in the trap. They have paid $50 grand for him, the price of an American male ready to be hunted.

After losing three fingers and being tortured by a sinister short and bald man. Paxton manages to escape thanks to the inexperience of his torturer. But he would still need to evade all the guards surrounding the installation before he can be free….there are still many horrors ahead for Paxton... I won’t tell you the end…you go and watch it your self….

Some Thoughts on "Flight 93" Movie

Before I begin, there is no doubt that the actions taken by passengers on Flight 93 averted a much greater disaster. Period! It doesn’t matter what the group or individual motives may have been. The tragic heroic result speaks for itself. I, for one, will be forever grateful to those ordinary people for finding extraordinary bravery amidst the paralysis of the deepest kind of fear.

I am troubled by the recently released movie, “Flight 93”. I have seen the trailers. I have no intention of seeing the movie. My guttural objection has nothing to do with the usual reasons: it’s too soon, it’s too graphic, it’s too commercial. My reaction was immediate and it was raw. The trailers focus on the passengers planning, talking and acting. My concern is no one, especially Hollywood, knows exactly what was said by whom for what purpose with what action. To reenact an imagined scenario stitched together by cell phone conversations to loved ones and tape recordings from the cockpit seems wrong to me when it is weaved into a real time story using real dialogue and real actions. I know this is the formula for most historical events portrayed on film, but this time it strikes me as exploitive rather than necessary.

If the film stayed out of the cabin of Flight 93, out of the unknown, I’d feel differently, for the real story is compelling enough without the sensationalism of presenting what might have happened within the plane. But it is the very drama within the cabin that the trailers draw us to. And that drama is too easy to manipulate, consciously or subconsciously, to some preconceived point of view or to influence an audience’s emotion. At best it is the creation of a writer’s educated guess and a director’s interpretation. At worst it is a producer’s self serving fantasy. Neither serves the passengers or public well.

However, the early reviews are in and apparently overwhelmingly quite favorable. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time I sat on the wrong side of a branch I was sawing. It’s just that I find some events way too important to unnecessarily bend and turn—this being one of them.

This article was written by Robert Crane. Author of "Still Living in the Sixties" and "The Single Adventure of Inlin Freebosh", Robert also writes a popular blog of casual observations and polical commentary, almost always unfair and never balanced, all of which can be freely read at his website located in the outer edges of the "internets":

http://www.cranelegs.com

The Da Vinci Code: A Must See Movie Or An Example Of Blasphemy?

The first time I heard of Da Vinci Code, I didn’t pay much attention. All I know is that it is a novel and that’s it. But when it made noise because of its controversial twists, mysteries, arguments, and why Catholics does condemn this book, I got so curious to the point of asking my parents (who are so religious) to buy me a copy of the book. Of course they didn’t buy me one but I made a way to have a copy. I didn’t have enough money to buy the book that time so I just asked my friend to lend me her book. She was so kind enough to entrust her copy to me. I read the book and finished it after two weeks (I’m not a book worm that’s why I’m kind slow in reading books). And yes, it is true and I can attest that the story is unbelievable. There are some parts in the story where it lets me think and analyze, and there are parts that makes me ask ‘what?’ and ‘how is that?’

Some of us think that this is a genius book. Some consider it as a typical novel. Others say that this is a story that must not be published. But let’s face it, Dan Brown can really write a book that makes noise and controversy. His other works like between angels and demons, and deception point also got the attention of many people. But now Da Vince Code has its own movie, this is now the new talk of the town.

It is now on almost all of the movie screens but it passed through many obstacles such as rejections, objections, and criticisms coming from different kinds of people, sectors, and religions. Up to now, it is still being turned down by the Catholics because they say that it is disrespecting God, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and many others whom they considered as holy.

Open-mindedness in things or movies such as this doesn’t mean that your faith in God is weak. Oftentimes you will learn many things and gain knowledge if you posses this quality. But many times, you will be misunderstood by the people. Here try to picture this, people are so intelligent that whatever you prohibits them to do, to say, or to watch will make them more curious leading them to do it, to say it, and to watch it. In simple terms, the more you ban the movie, the more they will watch it.

Now, it’s your time to decide. Are you confident with your faith in God that you think it can’t be destroyed by anyone or anything? Do you see that Da Vinci Code the movie is just purely fictional? Or you intend to believe in anything that you see and anything you watch? This is a matter of how shallow or how deep is your intelligence, analyzations, and belief in God.

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“Brokeback Mountain” Movie, When Love Won’t Count.

After a number of months hearing once and again a ton of good comments about “Brokeback Mountain” movie I finally had the opportunity to watch this movie in the theaters. I know I’m kind of late, even Oscars have passed, but it took sometime for the film to arrive in my town.

Curious sensation what I felt when the movie started playing, after hearing so many comments about the film I was at the point from which I already knew, at least from the morbid side, what the story was about and who was whom on the screen. At least that’s what I thought.

It all starts in the distance; one truck passing by the hills and then we find one young man outside an office that seems to be far away from everything. Then our second character arrives almost pushing his old black truck. It is now that we realize what they are looking for…they need a job.

They are hired to take care of sheep in the mountains of Wyoming, they will spend the summer together in the mountains, they will live and work side by side during all those days. As they arrive to their destination, “del Mar” , feeling more confident, releases a few words from his mouth and starts talking a bit more and showing some signals of sympathy to his buddy. He is a tough young man with a family history with resemblance of a nightmare from one of those Dickens stories. No one suspects anything “out of normal” is happening in the story. Days seem to be passing without any great novelty.

But something new happens, something out of the regular tasks of those working days and nights at “Brokeback Mountain”. Something has arisen between the two men, it is like a storm coming from nowhere that has entered their lives and that will mark them forever. It seems to be just a passionate episode of the lonely at the beginning, a dream that none will ever know. But reality dictates something different, what just happened, will continue happening once and again, they are attached forever by a force that makes or bends the will of anyone; something we may call, love.

Summer is over and both men must go back to their worlds away from the mountain, to their previous lives, but inside them in a secret place they know those lives exist no more. They have been confronted with their most inner reality and it won’t go away.

They will marry wives and strive to pursue a “normal” life just to realize they are being a pair of fakes. They don’t belong to that traditional society, they belong only to each other since those day in the mountains. They finally decide and meet again outside “del Mar’s” home, a poor second floor apartment. He hasn’t had much luck in life since childhood and it seems to accentuate everyday, now even his wife knows about his preferences. We are inclined to conclude his only luck and fortune in life is what he feels for Jack, his “fishing buddy”.

Things go wrong at “del Mar’s” home, marriage brakes and he is left alone fighting for life in a society that would stone him to death if they only knew. But there are bright moments too, and those happen at “Brokeback” where he regularly meets Jack who travels from far away Texas to meet the only love he has known.

By the end of the story there have been conflicts arising between the partners; too much distance and just a scarce proximity can not improve any relation. They have just had a bad encounter in their paradise, they part away with the promise of meeting again and fix what can be fixed when suddenly the story takes us to a scene where “del Mar” receives the notice of Jack’s death in a cold post card with letters that say “deceased”. Everything indicates he has been murdered, he was caught by those who won’t let the “others” happen. And now Ennis del Mar has been left aside from society, with his love eternally longing for Jack and a daughter that will get married soon and who doesn’t know his dad is a loner for a reason; and love won’t count.

“V For Vendetta” The Movie And These Days.

I must confess that the day I watched the trailer of “V For Vendetta” at the movie theater I wasn’t any close to be willing to pay a ticket for watching that guy with a funny mask on his face. It seemed to me it would be one more of those simple movies extracted from a not very known “comic” (at least for me) that are appearing in theaters quite often these days. But now that I watched it, I think I was judging this movie wrong and not being totally fair with the writer and director.

It was quite surprising to follow the story and its continuos resemblance to what is happening today in a not too far away country and not too strange neighborhoods. In the movie is England that has been taken over by a group of fanatics that have concluded that their reason to live is power and the imposition of his world model and ideas over everyone and everywhere. There is a continuos war outside the borders and inside democracy is over; meanwhile fear is alive. People has lost the power of questioning reality and take conscience of the terrible consequences of living under such a decadent regime. It is a model based not in reason not in justice. Is the model “fascists” preach, where obedience and a “clock-like” functioning of the society in the interest of a few “chosen ones” is needed.

But suddenly there is a problem menacing the “status-quo”, they (without knowing) have created their own finisher. It is a figure that appears to us as a mix of revenge with a revolutionary mind, its name is “V”. Though the movie makes it closer to a simple vengeance thirst of this character, which is a bad point for the writer, but anyway; the film put us in front of tyranny being challenged by a single questioner, a single doubt of what has been happening to that society and his menace to multiply those doubts once the right time has come, this is…The 5th of November.

There is also the human side of “V”, he meets the girl in the movie thanks to his opportune showing while she is about to be raped by a group of secret agents of the “fascist” regime that have catch her walking at the wrong hours. You are not even the owner of your time as long as the preachers of “England Prevails” are in power. She escapes safe thanks to “V” but only to be initiated into the world of those who will change that world. She will be the guest and prisoner of “V” until she finally learns that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

At the end there seems to be a split of the vengeance appetites of “V” and the revolutionary intentions that have been growing as the story develops. It becomes somewhat clear that everything coming from the old regime must die, including “V”, but he has left a final gift and maybe a lesson for those who want to learn it. Passions belong to individuals and can be very powerful forces; but revolutions can not be made by one or two individuals, revolutions are made by the conscience and willing of the people.

March Of The Penguins (DVD) Review

One of the more surprising films of 2005, and perhaps the most intriguing, was March Of The Penguins, a full-length feature film documentary cut from the same mold as a PBS National Geographic special. Directed by Luc Jacquet, the film had its origins in France, but the narrative theme is neither French, nor English, or for that matter, reflective of any nation’s cultural influence. Instead, March Of The Penguins is a truly rare cinematic masterpiece that transcends borders, language, and culture. Its brilliant portrayal of the Emperor penguin in his natural habitat offers universal appeal to audiences everywhere by reinforcing the themes of love, companionship, life, and the struggle to overcome the hardships of an oftentimes cruel and unforgiving world.

The US version of March Of The Penguins is narrated by Morgan Freeman, a stellar choice for the role as his precise, yet folksy, voice serves to underscore the magnitude and the magic of the annual journey endured by these fascinating animals. The visuals of the film are powerful in their own right, but I doubt the movie would’ve enjoyed the massive commercial success it did without the strength of Freeman’s performance. In the opening scenes, Freeman introduces us to the Emperor penguin and its icy homeland of Antarctica. As winter approaches, penguins from all over the continent make an instinctive annual voyage across rugged and inhospitable terrain in search of the ancient Emperor penguin mating ground.

Along the way, audiences learn every particular detail of the arduous task that awaits the Emperor penguins. With thousands gathered together, each must find a mate. Once the relationship has been consummated, a single egg is the product of their pairing. But the egg is fragile, subject to easy fracture and the hazardous conditions of extremely low temperatures. As such, the male penguin must protect the egg while the female returns to the ocean in search of food for herself and her yet to be born offspring. In the interim, high winds, driving snow, and freezing elements pound away at the swarm of male penguins as they desperately protect their respective eggs. Amazingly, the herd instinctively protects itself from the relentless cold by rotating those on the outside into the middle and vice versa, so that the burden of the cold weather is shared equally by all.

Once winter subsides and the females return, the newly hatched baby penguins face the additional threat of predators. The males must make their own journey to the ocean, and the budding toddler penguins must be initiated into the ways of their world, all so the process can take full-circle and start all over again next year…

One of the highest grossing theatrical documentaries ever released, March Of The Penguins is an utterly fascinating film. In contrast to the usual mind-numbing action-packed blockbusters produced by Hollywood (and demanded by those of us in the viewing public), March Of The Penguins is both educational and entertaining. You’ll find yourself perched on the edge of your seat in anticipation as these rugged creatures engage with the harshest elements of nature. You’ll root for the heroes and boo the villains, but despite the absence of a contrived Hollywood plot, you’ll find yourself truly captivated by this charming film – the story of struggle, the story of triumph, the story of life… March of the Penguins.

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the March Of The Penguins (DVD).

Movie Review: Ice Age 2

“Ice Age 2: The Meltdown” is about three prehistoric animals—Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the Saber tooth tiger (Denis Leary) and Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo)— narrowly escaping a melting paradise of water parks, geysers and tar pits. The world as they know it is coming to an end. The animals must run for their lives and fight other critters that threaten their existence.

For an animated adventure, Ice Age 2 is riveting and intense. The movie is pure “fight or flight,” a term equated with stress response. (Often stress causes people to fight back or run away, rather than responding in a cool, calm and collected manner)

Personally, I found Ice Age 2 to be more stressful than entertaining. I couldn’t laugh when vultures swooped down from the sky, screeching, “All unattended children will be eaten.” Fortunately, such comments flew right over my children’s heads. The kids laughed themselves silly as Scrat the Saber tooth squirrel (Chris Wedge) fumbled to gather acorns—a feat of mental gymnastics and Twister (minus the board game.)

My kids also laughed at the tribe of dancing mini-sloths who crown Sid the “Fire King.” Their silly songs, copycat chanting and dancing are kind of cute. (I glanced at my kids, and noticed they were dancing along in their seats) It’s one of the brightest spots in the movie. It is also funny watching Ellie (Queen Latifah,) a mammoth who thinks she is a possum. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Ellie cannot be persuaded to face reality. Fueling the fantasy are Ellie’s two wisecracking possum brothers, Crash and Eddie (Josh Peck & Seann William Scott.)

Towards the end of the movie, Manny the Mammoth suggests, “Let go of the past, so you can have a future.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, but my child misunderstood what it meant. His take: “Speaking of the future, what’s for lunch?” Bottom line: Ice Age 2 is a great kid’s movie, if you don’t take it too seriously.

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