Point-by-Point: Greystone Park - 1/10

A group of folks with a camera wander in to a haunted mental hospital. Why, or who exactly these people are, isn't made entirely clear. Anyway, if you've seen a found-footage horror movie, it's basically just like that, but worse.

The Good: Move along, nothing to see here.

The Bad: This movie is a mess. The premise is overused, the characters are utterly boring, and I'm not entirely sure there was a plot. Even for the shaky-cam genre, the camera work was notably bad - the movie was overly dark, with far too many out-of-focus and wildly-swinging shots, and an amazing amount of fake distortion / cutting to random 'creepy' shots the camera could never have taken. Trying to follow along with anything in this movie is a lost cause. Of course, it wouldn't be a total loss if it was at least scary, but no dice. Sure, there's a jump scare or two and the occasional shadowy blur as the camera pans across from one wooden actor to another, but that's nowhere near enough to keep the average viewer from falling asleep. So, to recap, the acting, editing, writing, and directing were all horrible. I bet the catering even sucked.

The Ugly: The look on Oliver Stone's face when he saw just how crappy of a job his son did. That's an assumption, of course, but it's a safe one. 

Points Pondered

-If you can figure out the relationship between our main characters, or even how many people are actually in the group that enters the asylum, my hat goes off to you.

-If this is found footage, why is there a score?

-There's not one point in this movie where I felt like I had a firm grasp on what was happening. It quickly devolves into people yelling at each other in similar looking rooms and hallways. 

-Until they find a fully-lit cathedral. In the middle of an abandoned mental hospital.

-The credits look like they were created in iMovie - 3D stone-textured names, poofing off the screen. I mean, did the director even watch this?

-Really, just watch Grave Encounters instead. Or maybe even an episode of Ghost Hunters.

Point-by-Point: The Tall Man - 6/10

The Good: This starts off as a pretty good thriller - the story, pacing and direction are solid. The twist in the middle, which I didn't see coming, had me figuring that this movie was going to be great.

The Bad: It was all downhill from there. The second half of the movie slows to a crawl, and it doesn't help that it relies on Jessica Biel's acting chops. 

The Ugly: The assumed morality of the final reveal is off. I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but it seems the movie treats the end as fairly clear-cut when it really isn't.

Points Pondered

-Really, owning as creepy of a van as our villain does should probably be regarded as probable cause for any crime.

-Most of my points pondered actually occurred in the latter half of the film, so I'll avoid mentioning them. Instead, I'll just say that the Tall Man from Phantasm is both taller and scarier than the The Tall Man's Tall Man. 

Point-by-Point: The Chaser - 4/10

An ex-detective turned pimp tries to track down his missing girls who, despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes have merely run off. Turns out, there's a creep involved, and then the chasing begins.

The Good: Taken individually, there are some interesting and well done scenes. There are moments in the direction and story-telling where I can see why people really like the film. Also, despite our hero basically being a total jerk, the performance is able to humanize him, making us truly end up on his side.

The Bad: The plot holes and sheer stupidity of the characters ruined this movie for me. Usually I'm pretty good at turning my brain off and just enjoying the ride, but The Chaser pushed me over my limit. Your story has serious problems when you rely on multiple people being idiots in order to get your characters out of sticky situations. Once is annoying, but it was almost a motif. For me, this killed any suspense they were trying to build, which then destroyed the pacing because I was sitting there going "There is no way this should possibly be happening" instead of focusing on the actual story. 

The Ugly: The utterly pointless murder near the end, that happens only due to a long sequence of the aforementioned stupidity. You can claim that it makes this movie gritty, or brutal. To me, it's just the director giving a big middle finger to the audience. 

Points Pondered

-Although this one takes it to an entirely different level, pretty much every Korean movie I've seen has totally incompetent cops. Is this just in film, or are they really that bad?

-There's absolutely nothing about the bad guy that convinces me he wouldn't get caught within an hour of his first crime.

-If my houseguest drew a creepy, four-walls-and-floor mural in two days, I might ask him to leave.

-This movie just proves that if you're sick, you shouldn't go to work. It's for your health, as well as the health of others. 

Point-by-Point: May - 8/10

May is a lonely girl. She meets a few people, but they find her creepy. She proves them totally right. 

The Good:  For a fairly small horror movie, the acting is outstanding. Angela Bettis is pretty much perfect as May, which is important because the movie could have easily fallen apart if her performance was even a little bit off. She makes you feel for May, even when she's being horrible. I also have a soft spot for Anna Faris (The House Bunny is far funnier than I would have imagined). Also, credit to the director - it's not easy to combine all of the emotional responses he was going for without it being a muddy train wreck, but he goes effortlessly between black comedy, psychological drama and horror. 

The Bad: Because of previously mentioned blending of genres, the pacing is a bit strange. I didn't have many problems with it, but someone hoping for a thrill-a-minute horror film will probably be bored towards the middle of this. 

The Ugly: Of the all gore in movies, violence of the ocular variety is by far the worst. This movie is a horrible offender.

Points Pondered

-My wife informed me that if the cat ever died while she was away, I should put it in the freezer. No.

-I appreciate that everyone treats May realistically - try to be friendly, see that she's kind of cute and quirky and want to hang out, then realize that she's actually crazy and slowly back away. Most people will take weirdness in stride until it gets to dangerous-weird.

-Has there ever been a non-creepy doll? 

-It's a bit odd - Jeremy Sisto looks to have aged a lot since this movie came out, and Anna Faris basically looks the same.  

Point-by-Point: Kill'em All - 2/10

A group of assassins is rounded up and forced to do battle. Why? That's never satisfactorily answered. 

The Good: This is a tough one. I guess there are a few nice shots of Bangkok. It also doesn't waste a lot of time getting to it's point.

The Bad: You'd think a movie about 8 assassins with different backgrounds and fighting styles killing each other would be exciting, but this movie is excruciatingly boring. The characters are entirely forgettable, and they all fight in basically the same way. I mean, you have to actively TRY to be boring to screw up this premise. I hate you, Kill'em All, for making me nostalgic for The Quest. Remember? The Van Damme movie? Featuring a tournament of deadly fighters from across the globe? No, the other one. That wasn't GOOD, but it was at least fun to watch. Kill'em All was not.

The Ugly: The set. I know the official description says they're locked in a "high-tech bunker known as the Killing Chamber," but that's awfully grandiose. I was thinking something like the X-Men's Danger Room, but it's basically a basement in an abandoned building that has a pipe for gas to come in. That's it. Disappointing.

Points Pondered

-It doesn't really seem fair to pit an assassin who specializes in explosives against one that has trained for years in hand-to-hand combat. Of course, he manages to hold his own, because this movie is dumb.

-For some reason, they decide to kill the most interesting assassins off first. Would have been too exciting, otherwise. 

-"Hey, now he's fighting like a monkey!" Oh, The Quest. 

-While you watch this movie (which you really shouldn't do), keep in mind that the main bad guy had all of these deadly assassins unconscious and totally helpless at two points during this ordeal. The fun begins when you try and reconcile that with the villain's ultimate plan. 

Point-by-Point: 13 Assassins - 8/10

A group of 13 samurai are sent to assassinate a brutal lord before he can grab any more power. Yet another well-titled movie.

The Good: For the most part, Takashi Miike tones down his usual cavalcade of brutality and that lets his ability as a director to shine through. The battle sequence is long yet amazing and well-shot, and avoids devolving into random guys hitting other random guys. Of course, he still puts in a few visceral scenes, but they are all the more effective when not surround by more of the same.

The Bad: Even though the story is well-told, it's fairly rote. Also, a number of the 13 aren't fleshed out very well, leading you to figure that they'll just be fodder when the time comes.

The Ugly: The variety of scenes used to paint a monstrous picture of our bad guy is about as ugly as it gets. Of course, by the end of it, you're totally on the side of the assassins, which is the point.

Points Pondered

-I knew this wasn't the average Miike film when a guy commits seppuku and you don't actually see him stick and knife in and watch his guts fall out.

-Setting this at the end of the samurai era definitely makes it more believable that a handful of well-trained men could pose a threat to a small army of amost-ceremonial samurai.

-The interplay between the leader of the 13 and the general of the enemy army was well done. It could have become one of a number of clichés, and avoiding them made the story stronger.

-Reading the description of the uncut version, they definitely made some wise choices for an international audience. Usually changes are made to dumb down films for a wider market, but here they eliminated a lot of silly scenes and weirdness that would have felt out of place. 

Point-by-Point: Lady Vengeance - 6/10

A lady goes to prison for awhile, then seeks vengeance on the one who put her there. The title is apt.

The Good: Park has style to spare. While it didn't quite impress me as much as Oldboy, the movie has an elegance that's easy to like. I also appreciate that people looked to have aged between when our hero first went to prison and eventually got out - I've run across far too many movies where 5 or 10 years supposedly pass and all the folks even have the same haircuts.

The Bad: I didn't like the story. More to the point, I felt like it was a good premise wasted. I actually kind of enjoyed the whole build-up of her calling on prison connections, but once a little girl shows up and other families get involved, it gets stupid fast. There are more than a few pointless scenes, and none of the actors seem like anything special. Overall, it's a pretty, dull movie.

The Ugly: There are a few scenes to be sure, but surprisingly nothing really approaching Oldboy. Let's go with the man-dog in the dream sequence.

Points Pondered

-The main character looks cooler in the poster than she does in most of the movie. I mention this mainly because I really like her eyes in the poster.

-She totes a very cool, albeit impractically super-close-range, handgun. But hey, style is definitely important.

-The "10 prisoners to a room" system seems to just be inviting problems.

-I think we can all agree that Chan-wook Park just enjoys torturing Min-sik Choi.