Movie Night: Beware the Slenderman

Review:

A documentary about the Slenderman stabbing in 2014.

                                                    

                 

(Beware... Minor Spoilers...)

This docu-film is a mostly one sided view of the attempted murder of a young girl by her two best friends in a small town inside of Washington.

Beware the Slenderman mostly spends its time sympathizing with the attackers, follows their families, explains their childhood and tries to explain how this event came to be and why. My disappointment is the fact that the victim and her family didn't have any participation in the film and the films creators didn't really give viewers much information on her life or who she was etc aside from being her attackers friend. Unlike the time invested exploring the attackers lives for the entire length of the film.

Mostly Beware the Slenderman focuses on the fact that these girls (the attackers) are still children and their families who are hoping that they won't be charged as adults for the extreme level of the attack because of how young they are instead hope that they're released with a slap on the wrist kind of punishment for the attempted murder simply because they are still children.

Beware the Slenderman lightly explores Slenderman's rumored origins online and the case surrounding why the girls chose the victim and why they wanted to commit the murder.

The parents of the girls also manage to express a minor concern with exposing the rest of their children to the internet through their schools who are giving tablets (i-pads and the such) to their students - including the girls (the attackers) siblings who are attending the school (as well as the other children in their community) as a teaching tool.

The reason why this is a worry for them is they believe that it was the girls access to their own tablets and internet where they discovered the website with the Slenderman on it in the first place that is at fault for the event. Not technically placing the blame for what happened on the internet itself but not quite comfortable with the fact that it continues to be enforced on children and the possibility that it could affect others in their lives as well considering what happened with these two.

Beware the Slenderman is mostly a way for viewers to see how the attackers families (mostly their parents) lives are affected by the incident (instead of the victims family) and is quickly brought to an abrupt end by providing brief typed out statements about the forest where the attack took place being leveled to the ground and the current status of the girls court cases and charges awaiting them.

It makes the docu-film feel unfinished and incomplete and none of the events resolved for the viewers.

The film itself feels like an amateur attempt to make a documentary that isn't well resolved. Its not very well done but still manages to make viewers cringe over the controversy of children becoming killers for all the wrong reasons and why in this case they think it happened.

Final opinion? I wouldn't recommend the time waste on watching this film.

Movie Night: Fantastic Four

Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

                                                    

                 

I've never really liked any of the Fantastic Four films that have come out over the years but I thought that perhaps they could salvage something out of what didn't quite work in the previous films. Although thinking back I think I could say that I prefer the 2005 version the most despite not liking that one very much either.

While this movie has some scenes that held my interest for short periods of time the entire film was sluggish, the cast didn't do a very good job evoking any emotion out of any of the scenes, it felt disjointed and lacking in real substance. A bummer of a film result. Not worth the watch.

Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

A series featuring stories from former members of the Church of Scientology whose lives have been affected by the Church's harmful practices.

                                                    

                 

One of the most amazing heart wrenching, starkly honest, completely real, punch to the gut series I've seen in a very long time.

Leah Remini has easily become a celebrity I have grown to admire and respect and I am impressed by her courage to get the truth out to the world and the risks that she's willing to take to set free the victims and families that have been broken by this religion for so many years.

I highly recommend it to everyone! Watch it alone, watch it with loved ones. Watch it, watch it, watch it.

Movie Night: Terminator - Genisys

When John Connor, leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline.

                                                    

                 

The more Terminator installments they come up with the further and further away from the original Terminator they feel.

As much as I love Jai Courtney aka Kyle Reece and how entertaining I felt his play off Emilia's character aka Sarah Connor was, I just didn't particularly care for the liberties that were taken with this story.

I didn't care for where they took John's character, I didn't care for Jason Clarke's portrayal of him. I felt he was a completely wrong choice of actor to play him, and I didn't like what they did to change the time line and plot of the entire industry.

I didn't care for pretty much any of it other than the interaction between Reece and Sarah which were good enough but not really worth coming up with to make this movie to begin with.

As for Schwarzenegger its a little too late to redeem his looks - even digitally. His look and the explanation they come up for why he looks so old just felt like a reminder of why they didn't attempt to go fully digital after the previous failure to capture his old look caused such a roil among fans. It just does not work at all.

It was interesting that he "understood" the hugging thing in T2 but this one he didn't, he cried in this one but didn't "understand" it in T2 until the end which felt like an odd nod to the previous movie by allowing him to cry but okay whatever.

As for the credit cut scene at the end of the film I don't think it really provides any or much interest on my part to want to see any further installments that they plan to make.

Movie Night: Arsenic and Old Lace

A drama critic learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are homicidal maniacs, and that insanity runs in his family.

                                                    

                 

My favorite line and I think everyone's favorite is: "Insanity runs in my family.. it practically gallops." This is an absolutely hilarious movie from beginning to end.

One film I believe is one of Carey's best movies.

I absolutely love watching the aunts going on about how they're helping these "poor men" by poisoning them and burying them in the cellar then keeping mementos on the wall its just hilarious because they're going on and on and they seem so sweet and innocent that it'll just make you fall over in laughter.

Especially when you see Mortimer just freaking out once he discovers all the insanity taking place during a visit after his quicky wedding at city hall.

What ensues afterward is just diabolical hilarity.

If you haven't seen this movie I highly recommend it!