Paranormal Goat Staring Activity

So last week I didn’t get to the cinema. I have to say I get all antsy when that happens. I don’t know I need my regular movie going fix. I guess it is what happens when you have a routine and something just throws it all out of whack. It is like there is a void, an absence, a disturbance in the force, if you will. But now it has been fixed. I didn’t get to the movies on my usual day or time but I made it there.

I actually got to see 2 new movies this weekend, only one in the theatre and the other from the comfort of a couch. I am happy about that fact cuz the one I didn’t spend money on was totally not worth my time anyways.

On Saturday I watched Paranormal Activity. I personally think I should have gotten better booty for being a pirate. ARG! If this was a ship it totally would have been thrown over board. It was boring, lame, and simply stupid. I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie after all the hype and the trailers did make it look good.

Paranormal Activity follows the last days of Micah and Katie. They are a middle class couple who live in the suburbs but strange things seem to be happen around their home. Micah decides to buy a view camera to see if he can capture any of it on tape. He didn’t know it was going to be the last thing he ever did.

That synopsis makes it sound a lot more interesting than it really is. This movie tries to utilize all the techniques of The Blair Witch Project but fails miserably. There is no tension, there is no escalation, there is no interest in what happens to these characters, and the thing is nothing happens. For a movie like this to work something has to happen. Yes they show a door move and foot prints but there is no momentum to those points and the scenes are completely anticlimactic.

On top of the movie not having any real feel the acting was bad. Distractingly bad. Katie Featherston who plays Katie is horrible. At no point did I believe her fear or any other emotion she had through out the movie. You could see her mind working to try and get it right. She is thinking “be scare” she is thinking “be happy” she is thinking “scream really loud”, it is all written across her face. And Micah played by Micah Sloat (the character names are truly original) was ok. He is not a bad actor but he has a lot of improving to do before he gets anywhere close to an oscar. The thing is his character was such an ass that you felt nothing for him. Tell you the truth, by the end when he is killed I thought, “thats what you get.” The guy was such a douche. And the supporting cast was just…just…lame. There is no point talking about them.

Don’t let the trailers fool you or the quote on the top of the poster, Paranormal Activity is not scary. All those gasping faces are lies. Those have to be actors cuz if you react like that to this movie you are a serious sissy or a 5 year old. Don’t both with this movie. If it is on tv at some point and there is nothing else showing then fine, have a look.

On Sunday I finally made it to the theatre. I saw The Men Who Stare At Goats. That movie wasn’t bad at all. It was relatively light, fun, and had a good story line.

The movie is about Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) a small town reporter whose life is thrown into to turmoil after the death of a co-worker. His wife leaves him and he decides to try and win her back by showing he can go big time. He ends up in Iraq and is having a problem getting to see the action. That is where he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) and he stumbles onto a very big story. Lyn Cassady used to be part of First Earth Battalion of the US army. He was trained to use paranormal abilities to complete missions.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is half adventure and half flashbacks and half voice over. Most of the story doesn’t just happen, we are told what is happening, I guess that is what happens when there is so much to be told. The movie is based on a book by Jon Ronson and its 272 pages must have had tons of stuff that had to have been left out of the movie. Even though the voiceovers can be distracting they were necessary. A lot of the things that happened could not simply be shown or else you would have a 10 hour movie and with out the info the narrator provided it would not have made any sense.

The acting was good, with all the talent in there it better had be. If Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey can’t put something good together then that would have just been sad. In many ways this could have turned out to be a horrible movie. Its whimsy and seeming foolishness could easily have come of as ridiculous and extremely stupid but they made it work.

The only thing I found unintentionally hilarious about the movie was the whole Jedi thing. Ewan McGregor (aka Obi-Wan Kenobi) played a guy who didn’t know what a Jedi was. I kept expecting him to break out in laughter and then pull out his light sabre. Every time they brought up the concept and he looked confused I would think “Come on Obi-Wan, you know.”

I do recommend The Men Who Stare At Goats. Don’t go in looking for a serious war movie that has some funny parts. It is a funny movie that has some seriousness and a point. I don’t know how true all of it is. Maybe not the exact course of events but there is some truth in there.

Now that I am back on my movie watching schedule there is a calm and all is right with the world.

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