Drive.

Drive is a film that you have to pay real close attention to. It contains a large amount of subtle emotion that is hard to understand due to its intentional lack of dialogue. Drive is a slow moving film in both its action and non action sequences. It ends up working out well because it is easy to figure out that both the slow moving action and dialogue reduction was intended by its director. In the age of giant explosions and lots of yelling, Drive is a complete success on its story alone. Even though the nameless driver seems to lack basic social skills, this actually ends up helping because it puts lots of words aside so that only his feelings are showing. The feelings that do show are that he is seemingly quick to fall in love with his neighbor, a single mother whose husband is in jail, and her young son. This quick attachment is made possible because of the lonely live that the driver has carved out for himself as both a movie stunt driver and a wheelman for heists. While Drive is slow to get started, it surely provides a breath of fresh air into the action movie genre.  

The good: The focus of Drive is delivering a strong storyline while setting aside constant action and dialogue; luckily Drive does exceptionaly well. 

The bad: Ryan Gosling's lack of lines can be quite annoying to some. 

Rating: 8.6 out of 10

Movie Hopes #3: The Hills Have Eyes 3?

This post was written on September 15th, and I have yet to see any information about a 3rd instillation of the modern hills have eyes movies. I understand that this is probably not the most popular of movies that people would like to see a sequel to. This is most likely due to how bad the second film was. The dialogue in The Hills Have Eyes 2 was so terrible that I felt that the, "jokes," were written by a high school freshman boy. None the less the premise for the modern hills have eyes movies are undoubtedly scary. Being stranded out in the middle of the desert with scores cannibalistic mutants and no way of communicating with anyone is a near perfect setting for a gory scary movie. As terrible as the second film was it left a cliffhanger from which a third film can built upon. It is not everyday that an entire national guard unit goes missing while on a training exercise in America. If a third film is to be made I hope an elite unit is sent into the mines to both kill as many mutants as possible and to obtain, "samples," for the government. With a stronger plot and less gore porn a third hills have eyes film would be decent, I would certainly go see it, would you? 

Contagion.

Previews for Contagion looked very attractive due to its subject matter and a veteran cast anchored by Laurence Fishburne and Matt Damon. The movie itself was quite solid with exceptional acting and an undoubtably believable script. The film focuses on many different angles of how peoples lives are changed as a deadly pandemic spreads worldwide. While these angles can be somewhat confusing at times, the stories that they tell are intriguing. The film delivered well on showing the emotions and decision making of human beings when they are put into survival mode. All in all this was a strong film that focuses on strong dialogue and character development rather than explosions and gore. 

The good: This film is solid all around and it gives a completely believable account of the types of occurrences that would happen if a pandemic were to break out in our modern world. 

The bad: The movie, although believable, is overly predictable and lacks any sort of twist. It is as straight forward of a film as you will ever see. 

Rating: 7.1 out of 10