Trick 'R Treat

To be completely honest, I'm not sure I "got" this movie. I'm all for creating a new horror idea, instead of just freshing up the existing fracnhises, but I felt like this would almost have been better handled in a anthology film style with different directors at the helm for each story.



Director: Michael Dougherty

True Blood: Season 2

Eric Northman
Originally uploaded by Vampire_Bill

I know True Blood is only two seasons along, but I have to say I am already interested to see where they might end. As faithful yet different to the books as season one was, season two ups the ante on adaptations and I have a feeling season three will do even more.

Season two of this HBO series deals with Sookie & Bill being called into Dallas to help Eric uncover what has happened to a vampire sheriff even older and stronger than he, and back in Bon Temps people are again being mysteriously murdered and the people of Bon Temps are caught up in the throes of hormones and their inhibitions have supernaturally disappeared. On the surface this is pretty similar to the book – at least the Dallas part of the scenario – but where the series manages to deviate, and improve upon the books is the series of events in Bon Temps.

First and foremost I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that Alan Ball chose to keep Lafayette around. In the books he’s the first victim in Living Dead in Dallas; Lafayette was an interesting character in Dead Until Dark (the only Sookie Stackhouse book he appeared in) but in True Blood Lafayette is downright fascinating. Alan Ball has a knack for taking characters that represent the outer fringes and making them downright essential. I can also tell you that Tara is a completely different character than she is in the book series and I couldn’t be happier for it. I’ve been reading the latest Sookie book (Dead in the Family) and I keep having to remind myself that this Tara is different than the Tara in True Blood - that’s a sign of good creative juices on Ball’s part no?

In regards to plot where season two of True Blood deviates the most is the storyline with Maryann Forester. While Maryann’s character is in the book, as is her need to create and feed off of debauchery I have to give one more point to Ball here. While the storyline in Living Dead in Dallas is entertaining the whole Bon Temps storyline kind of lost me – especially how Maryann eventually left Bon Temps.

For the series Maryann is a god-like creature who arrives in the happy town and decides to latch onto Tara, and instead of feeding off the debauchery already present in the town she creates it in order to facilitate the rituals she needs. Only Sookie and Sam sense something different and dangerous about Maryann and neither can do anything about her alone.

Perhaps the single coolest thing for me as an avid reader of the Sookie Stackhouse series is that for the first time in season two of True Blood we get to see Queen Sophie-Anne and Hadley. I won’t tell you how they become important in the series but just keep an eye out for them as you lucky people with HBO get to watch season three unfold before DVD.

Chow: How much blood do you think he's lost?
Pam: Oh, I still think he has something to offer.
Chow: I hate to let it all go to waste like this. Seems a shame we have to wait for Eric.
Pam: Well, maybe one day you'll be sheriff and you can make the rules.
Chow: I doubt that.
Pam: Me too.

True Blood: Season One

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Originally uploaded by truebloodnet

I watched season one again in anticipation of season two coming to DVD. I do adore this show.

Part of what I love so much about vampire shows and lore is that every tale can have it's own mythology and this show has a very unique one.

I encourage you to check it out.

Pam: You've already set her free. The same as Eric freed me.
Bill: Everyone she's ever known will recoil from her. Everything she has ever loved has been stolen from her.
Pam: Oh please! There's no comparison. You've given that pathetic lump of temporary flesh the ultimate gift. You're a maker. You're a hero.
Bill: I find myself doubting whether you were ever truly human.
Pam: Thank you.
To Love is to Bury

True Blood: Season 1

I watched True Blood season one again. I still love it though I honestly could do with the amount of sex in the show being toned down. We get it, they love to show the true definition of fang banger and Jason Stackhouse is a man-whore.

I am actually quite excited to see where the show goes after such a good adaptation of the first book because there is no way they are going to stick to it all. However, I think the real moral of this story is that I need HBO so I can just watch the seasons as they happen.

Grace is Gone

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Originally uploaded by Alessandra Ogeda

Grace Phillips is a dedicated Army serviceman currently away in Iraq, back at home her husband and retired Army-man himself, Stanley works and takes care of their two daughters Heidi & Dawn. Unsure how to interact with the two girls all three are in a holding pattern waiting for Grace to come home again and restore their family unit. However, one morning before work Stanley is visited by the TAPS officers and told that Grace has been killed in action. Unable to voice this to his daughters Stanley instead takes Heidi on an unexpected trip to an amusement park in Florida while he tries to figure out how to tell the girls that Grace is gone.

I don’t cry at movies, but when if finally came time for Stanley to tell the girls Grace was dead I cried. Grace is Gone is a very moving film and I am honestly surprised that it is James C. Strouse’s directorial debut. This film is a hard sell, and an emotional watch and Strouse handles it with deft hands.

I was greatly impressed by the talents of Shelan O’Keefe as Heidi Phillips. As the older daughter, Heidi has taken on an adult role worrying about her mother, taking care of her sister and doubting her father; despite Stanley’s best efforts he cannot seem to keep her from growing up too fast. However, when Stanley takes the girls on his road trip Heidi slowly begins to realize something is wrong, but her childhood naivety comes into play and she never locks onto the truth that her mother is dead until Stanley finally tells them. Despite her age O’Keefe plays Heidi with a subtlety that very few child actors have, and I’d like to see her in more as I would compare her to Anna Paquin in The Piano.

John Cusack also gave an incredible performance in Grace is Gone. The pain, joy, pride, shock and agony that Stanley goes through during his journey is brilliant to watch and I would have nominated Cusack for the performance. His performance reads like a performance of love and not a performance for recognition.

Director & Writer: James C. Strouse
Stanley Phillips: John Cusack
Heidi Phillips: Shelan O’Keefe
Dawn Phillips: Gracie Bednarczyk

Stanley Phillips: It's important that people have their own views based on an understanding of facts. But, it's also important not to trust the facts, because most of them are lies.
Heidi Phillips: I don't get it.
Stanley Phillips: It basically comes down to a gut thing. You just have to be open to allowing for a truth which differs from your own opinions. Or else you'll never actually see the truth at all.

True Blood

God Hates Fangs
Originally uploaded by snorrem

Sookie Stackhouse is a normal small town, southern girl; she lives with her grandmother, is a waitress at the local bar, and is subject to the criticism and scorn of the town – because she’s telepathic and can hear what those around her are thinking. As such Sookie doesn’t really fit in around her and other than her close group of friends exists slightly out of the world everyone around her lives in. It’s for this reason that when the vampires come out of the closet Sookie is excited instead of repelled by the news; two years after the “great revelation” Bon Temps has its first vampire resident in Bill Compton and controversy abounds when he and Sookie develop into more than friends.

True Blood is a great series. I can’t speak for the majority of Alan Ball’s works (though they have received great criticial praise) because True Blood is the first of his shows that I have seen more than sporadic episodes. What I can say is that the show works because it is tongue-in-cheek, well written, incredibly acted and so unique it stands out even among vampire/fantasy shows.

I am a fan of the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris which True Blood is based on and in watching the season one I was shocked at how well Dead Unitl Dark translated into season one. The changes that were made to the plot and the characters don’t seem to harm the story Harris told in her books, but instead helped give the television series a flare all of its own along with streamlining events and people so that a television audience could understand them.

What I was surprised by is how much I am enjoying Anna Paquin as Sookie. She doesn’t look like the Sookie I pictured when I read the books but she perfectly embodies her so that now she is all I can picture.

I am sorry to know that I will have to wait for season 2 until it comes to DVD and will be unable to watch it as it airs.

Creator: Alan Ball
Sookie Stackhouse: Anna Paquin
Bill Compton: Stephen Moyer
Sam Merlotte: Sam Trammell
Eric: Alexander Skarsgård

X-Men

X-Men is a tale everyone is pretty familiar with now. In a near future mutants have started to become a part of society and like any deviation from the standard this has begun to make the public uncomfortable; the mutants are viewed as “others” that cannot be controlled and are probably dangerous. The government is working to pass legislation that will force mutants to register, and this makes mutant leader Magneto and his minions take action against the public. The only ones who can stop them are the X-men, the students of another mutant Professor Charles Xavier.

When X-Men was released it was truly the beginning of the contemporary comic book film. We would not have The Dark Knight, Spider Man, or Iron Man the way we have them now if it wasn’t for this film and the film is an excellent movie. That being said, X-Men is nowhere near the level of comic book movie that the fans expect nowadays it is not nearly faithful enough to the source material. I won’t bore you all with the details but the major issues are Rouge being a teen and the absence of mutants like Gambit & most importantly Beast.

What is great about this movie is Bryan Singer. Singer gets X-Men on top of being a fantastic director; many people have speculated that because Singer is an “other” himself he could identify with these characters. Singer himself has admitted that he doesn’t know or read comic books; this didn’t seem to be a problem when he directed his X-Men movies, but it did become a problem when he made Superman Returns.

Director: Bryan Singer
Writer: Tom DeSanto
Wolderine: Hugh Jackman
Professor X: Patrick Stewart
Magneto: Ian McKellen
Jean Grey: Famke Janssen
Cyclops: James marsden
Storm: Halle Berry
Rogue: Anna Paquin

Dr. Jean Grey: Ladies and gentlemen, we are now seeing the beginnings of another stage of human evolution. These mutations manifest at puberty, and are often triggered by periods of heightened emotional stress.
Senator Kelly: Thank you, Miss Grey! That was-quite educational. However it fails to address the issue which is the focus of this hearing. Three words: are mutants dangerous

She's All That

I was in high school when I bought my first DVD player (at the time DVD’s were brand spankin’ new) and I still remember the first DVD’s I bought, these two DVD’s are probably the perfect example of the diversity in my movie vocabulary, these DVD’s are The Silence of the Lambs and She’s All That.

I adored She’s All That in high school and it still amuses me greatly. The movie really is My Fair Lady set in high school. Class president Zack, the most popular guy in school has come back from spring break senior year and been promptly dumped by his girlfriend Taylor – the most popular girl in school. Zack proposes a bet that he can make any girl in school prom queen, that most of Taylor’s appeal comes from her attitude, clothing and her social circle. Wanting to bring Zack down Dean chooses a girl for the bet – Laney Boggs – one of the most unpopular and awkward girls in school. After Zack convinces Laney that he wants to be friends with her he of course falls for the girl but can’t quite make him believe that he is on the level.

I love both Freddie Prinze Jr and Rachael Leigh Cook in this movie, but I have to say that I can’t name a single big thing they’ve done since She’s All That. I think that this movie and its stars remain mostly in my high school experience and not in contemporary pop culture. But I still find this movie fun.

Director: Robert Iscove
Writer: R. Lee Fleming Jr.
Zack Siler: Freddie Prinze Jr.
Laney Boggs: Rachael Leigh Cook
Brock Hudson: Matthew Lillard
Dean Sampson: Paul Walker
Taylor Vaughan: Jodi Lyn O’Keefe
Wayne Boggs: Kevin Pollak
Mackenzie Siler: Anna Paquin
Simon Boggs: Kieran Culkin
Katie: Gabrielle Union
Misty: Clea DuVall

Zach Siler: She kinda blew me off.
Mackenzie Siler: I like her already.