What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?
by Carina Santos

Scream 2 (1997)
D: Wes Craven
C: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O’Connell 

Scream 2 is the sequel to the widely popular Scream. Now in college, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is set on escaping her past. However, her survival of the Woodsboro murders has been turned into material for a horror franchise called Stab (where she is hilariously portrayed by Tori Spelling). Stab seems to have inspired a new incarnation of the mass murderer “Ghostface,” and Sidney is once again in the middle of things. Dewey Riley (David Arquette) leaves Woodsboro in the hopes of protecting Sidney. Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), once reporter and now best-selling author of “The Woodsboro Murders,” upon which Stab is based, tries once again to get to the bottom of things.

Scream 2 opens with a sneak preview of Stab, where Jada Pinkett plays Maureen, a girl reluctant to see “a dumb ass white movie about some dumb ass white girls getting their white asses cut the fuck up.” Before we know it, the adaptation of the Woodsboro murders is being played before a sea of Ghostfaces, as masks were given out by the cinema. This sequence encapsulates the magic of Scream: it’s all fun and games until someone gets gutted. Unfortunately, Scream 2 doesn’t really have much more of these up its sleeve.

Jamie Kennedy reprises his role as Randy Meeks, the resident film geek who also survived the Woodsboro murders. Randy’s obsessive outlining of sequel conventions (and ticking these off as they happen in real life) was another reminder of what Scream was, apart from the gore—self-aware, a little absurd, and frightfully funny. Scream, while letting the audience in on everything, still remained a murder mystery. Scream 2 teases but rarely delivers.

Full of generic horror tropes, where each conventional plot twist is debunked only to introduce yet another typical horror movie move, Scream 2 plays a game of “Guess how many people can die in 120 minutes” instead of focusing on “Whodunnit?” Even Scooby-Doo knows this is the way to go, to get a truly memorable reaction.

In the end, there are more red herrings than real clues, and there is never really any actual provlem solving. What we get is an uneven storyline, a mile-high body count, and a handful of good scares here and there. 

It does make for great material for media studies enthusiasts and horror fans, though.

A gem of a scene that I personally enjoyed is when Cici Cooper (Sarah Michelle Gellar) meets the masked murderer. Who knew Gellar, who at the time of Scream 2’s release was playing Buffy Summers, could play the victim, too? This is partly why I love the Scream franchise: it’s so good at blurring the lines between what we are familiar with as real (SMG as The Chosen One) and what we perceive to be fiction (Cici Cooper, hapless victim).

Perhaps it was the pressure of following a stunning horror movie that made Scream 2 lackluster when held up next to its older brother. While the movie wasn’t bad itself—it is a pretty good scary movie—the script and story shouldn’t have been sacrificed for a few cheap scares and twists. I don’t think it did so badly, though, as there are two more Scream sequels to come.

Ultimately, Scream 2 is successful in many ways, being part of a franchise that is so deeply ingrained in everyone’s pop culture consciousness. It just isn’t as good a story as the first one.

The Beginning of the End
by Carina Santos

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One (2010)
D: David Yates
S: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

In the penultimate installment of the Harry Potter film adaptations, director David Yates takes on a story of massive proportions. It was during the third time I saw the film—with my brother, a casual viewer—that I realized just how long it might have been those uninitiated into Harry Potter obsession. I kept looking at him to see if he would laugh at the parts I laughed at, if he was with me, riding on the crest of that wave of emotion, where it seemed as though I had no control over my emotional faculties. Namely, crying. But, alas! His face remained unchanged throughout the film—all two hours and then some of it—and I sank deeper into a disappointment. How come it felt loads more exciting when I was seeing it with other people? I felt like I needed to prove myself to this Muggle, and David Yates wasn’t helping me out.

One of Yates’ greatest faults is not being able to tell a seamless story well. All of the Potter films that he has, thus far, created seem to be a collection of fragments rather than an actually story. Watching them feels like sifting through a pensieve, where you plug in the missing pieces and attempt to connect the dots in your head. The problem is that, for non-readers, this might be a little jarring and confusing, as though they’ve been presented a puzzle where the pieces don’t seem to fit.

As a fan, I personally enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed looking for the “Easter eggs” that signified something meaningful, without having to outright explain. One of the people I follow on Twitter was doing a reread of the first book, and wondered if J.K. Rowling wrote Hermione, a girl so smart, just so she can procure background information for the reader. I was glad I didn’t need a “Hermione” in the films (in the sense that she will outright explain certain plot points), but it limits the people that the film could cater to.

Still, the film holds up. The approach to the narrative is only problematic if you aren’t a fan. I feel that people should take both parts of the film as a whole, though, where The Deathly Hallows Part I lays down pertinent and foundational information, and The Deathly Hallows Part II tells of what happens next. The last film is where everything culminates into what could possibly be World War III. This one, coming before it, draws out the tension and builds up towards the climax.

Visually stunning with a delicious score, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I at least succeeds at creating a magical environment one wants to be in, despite “the dark times.” While Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of The Prisoner of Azkaban is what broke away from the stiff and unimaginative mold Christopher Columbus had made for the Harry Potter series, Yates’ interpretation of the wizarding world is often pitch-perfect, always phenomenal.

The Deathly Hallows Part I sets up a lot of excitement for the next and final installment—the last remaining Horcruxes, the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort’s slow ascent to power, and those who relentlessly stand in his way while Harry Potter is away. A marvelous beginning to the actual, final end, this film is a gorgeous accompaniment to The Deathly Hallows Part II, drawing J.K. Rowling’s beloved series to a close and we say goodbye to The Boy Who Lived.

When Hagrid first utters, “Yer a wizard, Harry,” Harry responds in surprise and a bit of disbelief. “But I’m Harry,” he says. “Just Harry.” He has come a long way from when we first meet him in the cupboard under the stairs in 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging. The Deathly Hallows Part I gives us a glimpse of just how far he still has to go.

The Pleasure of Leaving
by Carina Santos

Some Boys Don’t Leave (2009)
D: Maggie Kiley
S: Jesse Eisenberg, Eloise Mumford

Some Boys Don’t Leave is a short film about a boy who, quite literally, will not leave. It takes you through the often painful (and embarrassing) process of getting over somebody you’ve built your life around.

It begins on a humorous note, showing a montage of the guy (Jesse Eisenberg) going about his day after his ex-girlfriend (Eloise Mumford) leaves for work. He sits in the hallway of their once-shared apartment, secretly proud of his relentless pursuit to get her back. He reads a play, writes in his journal, eats lunch, does push-ups.

When she gets home, he brings up what we can presume to be their old inside jokes. The girl snaps and says, “You are not allowed to ask about my day anymore, okay?” To which he comically quips, “I guess nights are off-limits as well,” and the icing on the cake: “What about late afternoons? Winter solstice?” to an already shut door.

The film works, and is beautiful for what it is. In fourteen-and-a-half minutes, Maggie Kiley tells a story of the ruins of a relationship. It’s sparse in context and back story, but it doesn’t lose any of its narrative quality. This is the story—this present state—that needs to be told, and it has been told well.

We see the changes happening from the boy’s little space in the hallway. You begin to understand that the reason why the boy can’t let go of this space is because it’s the only part of hers that he can hold onto. He’s fighting for it, because it’s the only thing she’s letting him keep. The whole story is all too familiar: his feeble attempts at making conversation, and reverting to humor to diffuse the tension and erase the real pain. Forget dignity and closure—he’s staking his claim over this little plot of land, because he can’t afford to lose it.

But, like a Smiths song, a late-night tryst with a stranger has opened the boy’s eyes. After the stranger leaves, there is a heartbreaking, hopeful moment where you are overcome with a strong, undeniable feeling that she will come back to him. Because some boys don’t leave, you think, these are the boys who are worth it.

The boy then spends the last few minutes of the film overturning each moment, re-evaluating everything he’s been trying to do to get her back. Gone are his endearing—though, to the girl, obviously irritating—quirks and daily activities. This time, he is caught in a stupor, revisiting old memories, holding them up to the light of this new, foreign plain of Not Being Together. And there is a different kind of pain, one that brings a stinging new awareness of things irrevocably changing around him.

And he gets it.

In 1974, a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda finally surrendered and returned to his homeland, nearly thirty years after World War II ended. In his heart of hearts, he had believed that the end of the war was a joke, and that there was still something worth fighting for. The signs were all there; he just couldn’t quite get himself to believe them.

The boy finally raises his flag and surrenders to what he couldn’t believe to be true. He finally understands what she had been trying to tell him—that she can move on, even when he chooses not to budge; that there is nothing there left to fight for—and for the first time, he is somehow able to say it himself.

Nobody But You And Me
by Carina Santos

Blue Valentine (2010)
D: Derek Cianfrance
S: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams

It’s hard to watch a film like Blue Valentine and not be sad.

It follows the collapse of the marriage of Dean Pereira (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy Heller (Michelle Williams), who met each other six years prior to the present day. Cindy was a student pursuing a medical degree, and in love with a boy named Bobby (Eric Vogel), and Dean was a high school drop-out, working for a moving company. They meet, fall in love, and their story is told through a series of flashbacks, attempting to explain just how exactly they get from being incandescent to a barely burning ember.

A motel scene, where an aged Dean coerces Cindy to join him, is particularly painful to watch. Here, they try to replicate the joy of their courtship, when it was easier to see them as people who would last forever together. Just before it cuts to a flashback, Dean puts on a song—“You and Me,” by Penny & the Quarters—which turns out to be the song he declared to be theirs. Six years ago, they make out in Cindy’s room and he puts the same song on. He says, “I didn’t make it, but I got us a song, like our song that will just be for you and me… Cause everyone’s got songs… But they’re lame and they all share them. It’s disgusting… But not us. We’ve got our own song.”

As the film unfolds, it starts to seem like Cindy had been cornered into making the decisions that she has, so far been making. In an embittered tone, she tells Bobby that, from the time they last saw each other, she’s “[b]een here, stayed here, never left here.” And then motivations of her actions become clear.

It’s easy to antagonize someone like Cindy—whose infectious charm she seemed to have outgrown after getting married and becoming a mother. It begins to look like she sucks the fun out of everything, and problematizes every little inconsequential thing, even when the people around her seem to have the best intentions in mind. But one of the most illuminating conversations is that of Cindy and her grandmother, the only person in her family that she claims could make her laugh. Confronted with the issues of love and feeling, Grandma Francis knowingly responds, “You’re a good person, Cindy. I think you have the right to say, ‘Yes, I do trust myself.’”

The director, Derek Cianfrance, says of Cindy: “In this movie, Michelle Williams takes a stand against something—and it’s her own stagnation. So I really hate it when people say she’s not likable, because to me, she’s the hero. She could have been more likable, I guess, if she were satisfied with just being a wife or a mother, but she needs more out of her life. She needs to grow. She needs to become. And those are heroic goals.”

While a lot of the film’s viewers have been reacting with some sort of empathetic sadness, Blue Valentine does not entirely consist of doom and gloom. There is a lot of cheekiness (watch out for that joke about the pedophile), sex scenes, and tender moments that touch on family and love, punctating the line of tension that the film would have been otherwise.

These scenes—the ukulele-accompanied tap-dance, the cab ride, their marriage, Dean’s relationship with their daughter, Frankie (Faith Wladyka)—make the demise of their marriage that much more painful to watch. Because you know that, at a converging point in both their lives, they loved each other; at one point, they had been what the other needed.

At its heart, Blue Valentine is a story about Dean and Cindy trying to be good people—to and for each other. The film is driven by remarkable performances by both Gosling and Williams, displaying the full range of emotions required to be able to tell a story like this—at once, simple and complex. Grizzly Bear also composes the perfect soundtrack to a story that is both heartwarming and tumultuous, both tender and destructive.

As the credits roll, we are faced with a series of explosions in the sky, illuminating the moments in their lives that were the brightest before fading into black.

Honest To Blog
by Carina Santos

Catfish (2010)
D: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
S: Yaniv Schulman, Ariel Schulman, Melody C. Roscher, Megan Faccio

The story behind this year’s Catfish is simple enough. A photographer from New York, Nev, meets an extraordinary Michigan family through Facebook, first conversing with an eight-year-old child prodigy, Abby Pierce, who loves to paint. In a flurry of pictures and paintings sent back and forth, he forms relations with her and her family. And then, of course, he develops feelings for Abby’s older half-sister, Megan. Megan who is beautiful, talented, sweet, and also, Megan whom he has never met.

The whole experience gets filmed by his brother, Rel, and their friend, Henry. What seems to start out like a beautifully strange connection with a surprising group of strangers sort of spirals into what a lot of online relationships turn out to be.

The legitimacy of Catfish is what is raised most often. Perhaps because it heavily deals with the determination of what is true and what is not true. Perhaps, it is also because the progression of the story is so unreal, too painful and acute, that it lies on the “too good to be true” plane. However, I’d like to think that whether it is real or not real is beside the point, because the bigger issues that surround Catfish are so much more important to reveal.

I’m of the opinion that it’s best to view the film with very little expectation, and very little knowledge of what actually unfolds. The only things you need to know, story-wise, are contained in that short, opening paragraph. To experience Catfish in the best possible way, you must go into it, virtually a clean slate, and allow yourself to discover the truths about the human condition, in the way that the filmmakers intended you to. Forget the hype, or what you’ve read, or what people have been telling you about it. Forget the stupid trailer that made it look like some sort of Blair Witch Project spin-off. Stop reading this review and start watching it right now, even. Then go back here, so that we can talk about what you have just learned about yourself and about other people.

It’s easy to dismiss the events that unravel, and it’s easy to judge everyone involved of gross perversion, craziness, exploitation, and what-have-you. It’s easy when you haven’t been to the places that they have, in terms of all-encompassing loneliness, of grief. When people need a place to escape, they tend to take the easiest way out. With the Internet, lots of possibilities are opened up.

What Catfish is is a confrontation of so many different issues that surround the human experience—the connections we make, the kind of people we make ourselves out to be—especially the issues that the people who hide behind the Internet, anonymity, and made-up personas are afraid to confront, but are deeply concerned with. The Internet becomes a vehicle for escapism, but it also grows to be a crutch that some people struggle to learn to live without. The possibilities are endless, but it doesn’t mean that you have to cross each one.

There are so many things still to be said about Catfish and what it reveals to us about how we form relationships: from what we consciously and subconsciously project to others about ourselves (I would go on about how we carefully construct our identities according to what kind of impression we want to make, but that’s another story), to how easy it is to connect with a person, to figuring out which of these connections (and which of these people, for that matter) are “real.” What do people mean by “in real life”? Where is the line drawn? Does the line even exist anymore?

Catfish opens shutters, windows, doors for these discussions and creates the space for us to really understand what it means to be a person living in these somewhat Dickensian times, the best of times/the worst of times, whether or not Catfish is real or not real.