Review - Late Phases

I’ve asked this before, but apparently the question needs asking at least one more time: is it really that goddamn hard to make a werewolf movie? Over the years I’ve seen a couple of bullseyes and several that missed the mark to varying degrees. But this hunk of junk isn’t even in the same state with the target. An elderly, blind asshole moves into a retirement community only to find the place overrun with horny GGILFs (including one played by the reanimated corpse of Tina Louise) and werewolves. Script, rubber lycanthrope effects and even the acting (including the efforts of veterans Lance Guest and Tom Noonan) are equally dreadful. Wish I’d skipped it.

Review - The Final Girls

Along the same lines as Cabin in the Woods, the picture combines horror and comedy by taking such a reflexive look as the former that it produces the latter. And once again I find myself surprised that I don’t hate it.  Though it’s a bit too ham handed for my tastes, it’s still a cute criticism of the slasher genre’s misogynist take on young women’s sexuality. Mildly amusing.

Review - Insidious Chapter 3

If you’re sufficiently conversant in the whole Insidious thing, then the in jokes about the recurring characters’ early contacts with the supernatural may amuse you. My take on it is that the first one didn’t even need a sequel, let alone a prequel. See if desperate.

Review - Before I Go to Sleep

50 First Dates only not funny. See if desperate.

Review - Visions

A pregnant woman and her husband bet the farm on a farm, or a vineyard to be more precise. Shortly after moving in, she begins to experience horrible visions – so the title’s apt enough – of the property’s ghastly past. Not exactly out of keeping with other pictures of this ilk, the script puts all its eggs in the “surprise twist” basket and then fails to supply any. See if desperate.

Review - The Forest

Natalie Dormer plays twins caught up in the sinister malaise of the Aokigahara “suicide” forest in Japan. The picture gets off to a reasonably good Americans-borrowing-Japanese-ghost-stories start, but somewhere along the line it loses all focus. The back half of the story (assuming there even is a story at that point) wanders as aimlessly as someone lost in a forest full of malicious spirits. Mildly amusing.

Review - Sinister 2

Despite a title and a smattering of plot elements cribbed from the first Sinister movie, this picture is far more closely akin to the Children of the Corn set. And not one of the better entries, either. I might have had an easier time swallowing this Big Mac if I hadn’t been expecting McNuggets. See if desperate.

Site conversion is underway

As of 8:09 CST this morning, the old 8sails is gone. As I mentioned last month on the 8sails Facebook feed, I'm giving priority to the College section so my students will have everything they need for class. Once that's done, I'll begin the long – and I do mean long – process of redoing the rest of the site.

I appreciate everyone's patience while I continue working on the conversion. Naturally I still have all the old content saved, so if you're in dire need of any of it let me know and I'll dig it up for you.

Thanks.

Review - Dead Silence

Time to add “ventriloquist” to the “nope” list. In this go-around the ventriloquist is a ghost with a legion of dummies. But these twists don’t add enough to stretch 20 minutes worth of plot out into a feature-length production. See if desperate.

Review - Pay the Ghost

Those of us old enough to remember the Jim Bakker sex scandal likely recall the joke that the initials of Bakker’s Praise The Lord network actually stood for Pay The Lady. So guess what the title of this picture reminds me of. The movie itself is a run-of-the-mill ghost story, an Americanized plot along the La Llorona line. And speaking of getting paid, I assume Nicolas Cage signed on to this mediocre offering because he needed the money. Mildly amusing.

Unmaking of a Murderer

During the holiday break I watched the new Netflix series Making a Murderer. As apparently did a lot of other people.The series has sparked petition drives to obtain pardons for Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, two men convicted of murder in rural Wisconsin.

At least in Avery’s case, these petition efforts are misguided. The folks bugging Barack Obama about this should understand that the President doesn’t have authority to pardon state prisoners. The folks bugging Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker about it … well, I’m guessing that’s a non-starter. Walker strikes me as Wisconsin’s version of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. If the comparison is apt, there will be no mercy from that quarter (unless the Averys are secretly billionaires and have cleverly concealed it).

However, if Walker happened to be in the pardoning mood, he should issue one for Dassey. Unless something dramatic was omitted from the documentary, the guy was convicted almost solely by his own confession to law enforcement officers. Were I a juror in the case, I would have regarded the admissions dragged out of a mentally-atypical 16 year old as self-contradictory, coerced and worthless as evidence.

Avery is another matter altogether. Here’s what I think the evidence shows:

When he was 18, Avery burglarized a bar. He was convicted and spent 10 months in jail.

When he was 20, he poured gasoline on his family’s cat and threw it in a fire, burning it alive. He did prison time for animal cruelty. Early in the documentary he lies about the crime, claiming the cat’s death was accidental.

Three years later he was convicted of assaulting a female cousin with a shotgun. In the documentary he admits to the assault, though he claims the gun wasn’t loaded. Not that his cousin would have known that. Not that she wouldn’t have feared joining the family cat in the afterlife.

This evidence clearly establishes Avery as a violent man capable of complete indifference to the suffering of others and incapable of conforming his behavior to the requirements of the law. It also establishes his willingness to lie.

Though that might mitigate the amount of sympathy one ought to extend to him, it shouldn’t by itself be enough to convict him of other crimes.

Sadly, this principle was demonstrated when Avery spent 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn’t commit. Shoddy work by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department led to the conviction, which was overturned later when Avery was exonerated by DNA evidence. The tainted investigation was either the result of “round up the usual suspects” law enforcement or part of an ongoing family feud involving Avery and some members of the sheriff’s department.

On or around October 31, 2005, photographer Teresa Hallbach was murdered. She was employed by Auto Trader Magazine, and her last appointment of the day was a car photo assignment at the Avery family salvage yard. Steven Avery had an established pattern of specifically requesting Hallbach when he did business with Auto Trader. And Hallbach had asked not to be sent to the Avery property anymore, citing a previous incident in which he came to the door wearing nothing but a towel.

Nobody saw Hallbach alive after her appointment with Avery. Her bloodstained SUV was found parked on Avery’s property. Charred fragments of her bones were found in the ashes of a bonfire set by Avery on the evening of Hallbach’s disappearance.

For obvious reasons, Manitowoc deputies were supposed to be excluded from the murder investigation. But some participated in it nonetheless. Evidence strongly suggests that they planted the SUV’s key in Avery’s trailer and smeared Avery’s blood (obtained from an evidence file from a previous investigation) in the SUV itself.

Avery was clearly convicted based in part on tainted evidence. And that’s exactly why he shouldn’t receive a pardon. If he’s pardoned, he can’t be tried again for the crime. Both Avery and the people of Wisconsin deserve better than that.

Of course he isn’t entitled to a new trial. He had expensive, competent counsel during the first go-around (another benefit denied Dassey, who was tried separately). His lawyers challenged the validity of the evidence, so the jury had the opportunity to question it. 

But in this particular case, a new trial would be a fascinating experience. Personally, I believe Avery would be convicted anew based on the non-tainted evidence from the investigation.

And if he happened to win acquittal, perhaps someone will make a ten hour long documentary about how broken the justice system is when it can’t keep a brutal killer like Avery behind bars.

Review - Harbinger Down

The concept is simple enough: The Thing relocated to a ship in the Arctic. Unfortunately this production is thoroughly slaughtered by a dreadful script and equally awful acting. See if desperate.

Review - Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens

And so it begins again. This struck me as the best entry in the set since 1980, at least in part because it’s an eerily familiar reheat of the story and characters from the 1977 original. However, the series seems to be in good hands with J.J. Abrams rather than George Lucas at the helm. The effects are impressive, and the cast and script are also good. After what Abrams did to the Star Trek franchise, this was a welcome relief. Worth seeing.