Assessment: It was not a great movie, but it was watchable. It had a pretty standard storyline and felt reminiscent of a typical zombie movie. Small town overun by monsters. Ragtag band of heroes survive to tell the tale. Complete with the dumb student-agers, the tough mom/badass female, the rugged man hero, etc.
Ironically, this film was by a different director than the first. The director of the first being THE White-American Resident Evil GUY. The writer/director of all 6 not that great Resident Evil films. Maybe this director(s) took a cue from him.
Epic final scenes of a rainy night escape situation to get to the hospital roof, which always has a helicoptor. A little nod to Arnie when our hero yells, “get to the chopper!”
It was pretty much what you might expect despite the plethora of questions that arise as there was no provided scientist character to translate/interpret the Predator’s motives.
Final scene of the movie leaving it open for more. As they do. This time with the revealing of a mysterious all powerful organization. Much like the conclusion of the Godzilla/King Kong films. Who is this organization? What do they want? Do we even care? If we don’t know by now, maybe we never will.
The air is thick and hot. It settles on you like a thin layer of fabric slowing your movements down. Forwards feels like a goal, like a battle. The sun seems absent yet, somehow always behind you, casting shadows among a scifi shade of orange. Unnatural shade of orange. Smog curtains you in, trees, mountains, distance, all left to foggy memory. The sound of crows rising up from some indeterminable direction. Maybe every direction. And if you squint your eyes a little and strain your ears, you might find yourself in that post apocalyptic existence meant only to be found in the aisles of fiction.
It is about the idea of possibilities. Parallel worlds. They describe it as one bubble splitting in two, circling each other as they ascend towards the same place. The idea has been touched on a number of times. What would my life have been if I had turned right instead of left? Who would I have met and who wouldn’t I have met? These films are separate, but like two bubbles they circle around each other. They present as two possibilites for the same boy. The impact is more in the thought provoking nature rather than illiciting deep feeling. The deeper feeling was sacrificed to make room for the establishment of the science. And while there is debate on which order to watch the films in, there is only one order that makes sense and allows for the story to build on itself. Similar to the way that there is only one order to watch the Star Wars films to gain the most fulfilling experience. In the same vein as Your Name, these films have that “what if” flavor. The desperate and driving need to bend the laws of physics to save someone you love.
I am from my head down to my toes. Have you ever had those moments where your heart just stops? Like the first time you ever heard Dreams by The Cranberries. Or that moment in Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy when Stevie stops and the guitar takes over. Or the way the sound of a cello is simply a love song to the soul… And even in a crowded theater with a huge bendy screen and immersive “surround sound,” this grabs me by the heart balls with one hand and slaps me upside the head with the other. This. This is a love song to my soul.
I think a lot about correctional facilities. I think about what Angela Davis said about them being places in which we deposit anyone we don’t want to see on our streets. Anyone who may tarnish the Great American image. And I think about the irony in calling it a “correctional facility,” when we stack the deck against any possibility of correcting themselves. Crimes should be punished. But what reason is there to punish someone if they aren’t afforded the opportunity to acknowledge wrong doing? In Ben Austin’s book about corrections and parole he paints a picture of hope and the hopeless. Sing Sing is a snap shot. It is one small drop in the bucket towards true prison rehabilitation. And it is a unique one. It is so easy to hand someone a journal and pen, or paper and a paintbrush and tell them to emote. And that is not to say that writing or art is not an effective way to heal and grow. But theater is an art that demands more than pen or paint. In one scene you understand the difficulty and the trust it takes for one inmate to lower his defenses enough to become the character he is playing. You watch a group of men joke around and heckle each other. But you also see that they are still prisoners. You see it when the main character’s room gets tossed, or when another character reacts defensively when someone walks behind him. They are men who have committed whatever crime they committed to end up in Sing Sing. They have families and they have lives and pursuits that were interrupted. We are given a snap shot of individuals amd not of just prisoners. More bricks in the wall. And it is warm, and it is hopeful when they reach the finale of their play. And when the credits begin to roll, and you see hand camera footage of a stage play being performed, you are suddenly made aware of the fact that the actors in the film were all real inmates and that this was their story.
Ma Vie en Rose 