EAGLE EYE (2008)

Not really for those looking for heavy story, Eagle Eye is basically a big budget action thriller that delivers pretty much what it promises - explosions and car chases.

Eagle Eye follows adorable good-for-nothing ‘copy associate’ Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is less than content with his life, though has no aspirations to better it. That life is derailed after the funeral of his twin brother Ethan (also LaBeouf) when Jerry tries to deposit a check into his formerly empty bank account and discovers an assumed error resulting in a balance of a small fortune which Jerry is only too happy to accept.

The money is the first oddity, the next is his return to an apartment full of guns, ammo and explosives which he barely has time to take in when he receives a phone call from a mysterious woman telling him to flee the premises. Of course Jerry’s not a shiny penny, and doesn’t take direction well which lands him in police custody under suspicion of domestic terrorism.

In the same town Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) has just seen her son off on the train and is taking some much needed down time in the form of a night out with her girlfriends. Her night out is cut short by a phone call from her son that turns out to be a call from the same woman who’d called Jerry earlier. The woman explains to both Jerry and Rachel that they have been ‘activated’, and that their lives and the life of Rachel’s son are on the line if they don’t do exactly as instructed.

Once again, not much in the way of deep plot and character thought, but the characters are well drawn and the action sequences are amazing if not a little far fetched. Go into this one expecting to be entertained, you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a very realistic use of technology. Well acted, well scripted, an easy 4 stars out of a possible 5!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s film, which will be posted on Beautiful Sin!

THE WISDOM OF CROCODILES (1998)

Also billed as Immortality, The Wisdom of Crocodiles is maybe the best vampire film of all time, surpassing The Lost Boys, NonBio Bio and even Nosferatu. It’s about Steven Grlscz (Jude Law), a stunning and seductive man who just happens to be a vampire.

Grlscz’s story is different from other vampire stories in that while, like most vampires, he needs blood to survive, unlike most vampires he can’t just survive on any blood. Steven seduces and romances women in order to earn there love, and then he kills them for their blood - taking into himself their feelings for him. Which he’s content to do forever, until he meets a woman who stops him in his tracks.

Beautifully written, scary and romantic. Law’s preformance is stellar and very haunting. Don’t watch Twilight, kids, rent Crocodiles. A solid 5 out of 5 stars!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s film, which will be posted on Shibuya 109!

I may head up to the gas station and get something spam-like to make gyoza with tonight. Birthday gyoza! With spam! Okay, maybe I’m the only one excited, lol.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I’ve never been fond of blogs where the webmaster will dictate to the readers what they should think and how they should live their lives. I’m all for differing opinions, and your blog is yours — don’t ever let anyone tell you any different. I just don’t have to go to your blog.

So if your blog tends to be the head up the ass type I’m referring to, then that’s your business. But your business, especially the last few years, seems to be to tell other bloggers and even your readers what to do, and let’s be honest, all that does is form a line behind you of people who agree with you so that you won’t target them, and a line in the sand in front of you for everyone who doesn’t agree with you to stand behind so that you can exclude them from your world. Much as that sounds like an episode of a bad teen soap opera, it also doesn’t sound like good eats.

When I go to blogs I go to hear their opinions on religion, politics, art, etc. - things that matter. Personal stories rarely interest me, but that’s not to say they don’t fall into the ‘things that matter’ category. I’m also quite fond of book and film reviews, recipes ( love recipes! ), anything bento - you know, happy fun making stuff. I find, though, that I find most of this happy fun making stuff on blogs that post paid ‘ads’, and I find the shit stuff (this is how you should blog, blah blah blah) on blogs that are vocally opposed to paid ads.

In fact, most of the best, most interesting and fun people I’ve met online in recent years post paid ads. I enjoy their blogs, I find them to be very honest, very hard working and very entertaining and I wouldn’t change them at all. But I also find that if I go to a blog these days that is *not* sporting ads for SocialSpark, PayPerPost, etc. I leave - almost immediately.

And it’s something I don’t do consciously, in fact I only recently noticed that I’ve been X-ing out every non sponsored blog that I got to and I have no idea when it started. I’m guilty of something I hate, and that’s not even giving the blog a chance because I’m afraid that it *might* be one of those blogs that I can’t stand, and I may get halfway through the first post on the page and realize the person is a huge internet bigot with a stick up their ass, and if I read on it’ll only make me mad and I’ll end up blacklisting the site in my mind and there’ll be a fiasco, lol.

I don’t see this changing anytime soon. I like going to fun blogs, I like reading about fun people, I like the carefree and laid back, intelligent and ethical people I’ve met as a result of sticking with paid blogs. I also like the ads, I’ve found out about a lot of things from those ads, including freebies and film reviews, some great products ( seriously, dudes, try FreezeIt, lol ).

There’s no point in the bigotry, and I don’t care to be part of that world, but I can’t help feeling a twinge of guilt because I’ve shut out people I used to like and closed myself off to new people just because they’re doing something I don’t like - and that’s exactly what they did that turned me off to them in the first place. I suppose I’m only human, so let’s call this a happy mistake.

THE CRAFT (1996)

How can I even describe Andrew Fleming masterpiece without accidentally saying they made those bitches too real? Witchy woman-ness aside, The Craft’s characters interact very much like real people. The dialogue, the situations, the acting and the sets - for a horror film, this is just one believable story.

The Craft is about Sarah Bailey, played perfectly by Robin Tunney, who’s father and step mother move her to L.A. and enroll her in a Catholic highschool where she quickly becomes part of the in crowd when popular classmate Chris Hooker takes a shine to her. Unfortunately, the shine where’s off when Sarah refuses to go home with him one night and he tells the entire school that she was, to quote Nancy, “… the lousiest lay he’s ever had…”, effectively making Sarah an outcast.

Of course Sarah doesn’t stay lonely for long, she falls in with a misfit group of goth girls who are determined to make their lives better through the practice of severely bastardized and fictionalized Witchcraft ( though a lot of those rituals are pretty dead on ) and wackiness ensues.

One of my favorite teen flicks of all time, this film takes away 5 out of a total of 5 stars!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s film, which will be posted on Beautiful-Sin.net!