Well, it's
October. My favorite month of all the months. The leaves are donning
their Autumnal outfits and preparing for their annual
decent into oneness with Earth. The fall/winter clothes get
taken out and the summer clothes get pushed toward the back of the drawer
to begin their much-deserved peaceful slumber after another job
well done. Halloween decorations are put out, whole aisles at
department stores take on a black-ish\orange-ish glow and are constantly
spilling over with laughing children...and I vow to only watch films
containing blood, guts, axes, murder, dismemberment, mutilation,
disembowelment, machetes, bare-handed strangulation, impalement, stoning,
stabbing, chainsaws, demons, monsters, witches, werewolves and zombies. No
wait...FUCK zombies. I'm so sick of god damn zombies already. That fad needs to
die and NOT come back!
Moving
on...
Entry #1: American Mary
Today I
watched American Mary starring the "sometimes-hot-sometimes-eh"
Katharine Isabelle. That applies to her looks as well as her performances. She
wasn't horrible in American Mary but she could've done
better. Some lines were delivered with next-to-no emotion etc. I
don't believe it's totally her fault though. This is a situation where I don't
blame the actor as much as I blame the director(s) for not giving a shit about
their lead having a lackluster day. It's their job to pull that out of their
acting team and to do multiple takes until it's right. Unless this is what they
thought was "right"... Considering this is the largest project
to-date by directors Jen & Sylvia Soska, I'm not going to hold it against
them. But still...step it up, ladies.
So...the
first half hour or so was really good. It seemed to be ramping up to a
decent character study about the lengths people will go to accomplish their
goals. It reminded me a lot of May which, if you haven't seen, you
absolutely should. American Mary creates the same kind of
emotions that May does, where you really invest in a
character who ends up doing horrible things to people but for a
"good" reason.
After that
"half hour or so" it takes a turn and becomes a slightly different
film. It feels like a revenge plot is emerging. But then after a few minutes of
that it changes course slightly AGAIN and becomes sort of a rebirth tale
about a girl who finds her true calling in an unexpected place and decides to
give up on what she originally wanted to do for, what I assume was, a large
portion of her life.
At this
point it was still a pretty decent film despite the minor identity crisis it
seemed to be suffering from. But I'm cool with that. Sometimes that can work to
a film's advantage (Looking at YOU, Cabin in the Woods!). All that's left to do
is create a big climax and end with a bang!!
Unfortunately...American
Mary didn't achieve much of a climax OR end with a bang. It just wandered down
the disjointed path it paved for itself during the first 60 minutes. Characters
were introduced...relationships were created...other relationships ended (I
think) or hinted at going somewhere but never did. Just like the film as a
whole.
When it was
over, I didn't hate it but I didn't like it much either. What saves it and
makes it worthy of a watch are the makeup and special effects. I thought
the team did some really great work in that department especially
considering most of the film is brightly lit and they used lots of
close-ups to highlight the finer details of body modification.
The overall
production of the film was ALSO really solid, despite the erratic and
sometimes weak story it was working with. It reminded me of a Kanye
West album; all gloss-no substance.
My advice:
Go ahead and watch it (currently available to stream on Netflix). Maybe you'll disagree with me. After all...most of
you probably like Kanye and zombies. And you know how I feel about zombies.
Fuck
zombies...
*does not
include days when I'm unable to watch a horror film because I'm being a
father, working, doing homework, at Disney World or playing GTA V.
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