Aliens in Movies

I wish I could get Hollywood to understand this: Aliens should not be put into movies to fill some void in your screenplay. Don't get me wrong, I love a good alien movie like Independence Day or War of the Worlds or even Mars Attacks. What I do have a problem with is when Hollywood takes a good story and turns it into a suspenseful film or a good drama and all of a sudden there are- you guessed it- aliens! Even if it doesn't make sense.

Take, for instance, The Box. The Box sets you up for a brilliant storyline: If you push this button, you will receive a million dollars, but someone in the world that you don't know will die. That seems like it would make for a great movie. In fact, the short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, on which the movie is based, and in which there are no aliens, is a great short story. After all, Richard Matheson has written several books that have become movies, like I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come. Don't tell me this excerpt doesn't entice you:

"'If you push the button,' Mr. Steward told him, 'somewhere in the world, someone you don't know will die. In return for which you will receive a payment of fifty thousand dollars.'
Norma stared at the small man. He was smiling.
'What are you talking about?' Arthur asked him. Mr. Steward looked surprised.
'But I've just explained,' he said. "

Seems like a great story, right? And it is. However, the movie does this story no justice whatsoever. Halfway through the movie, you learn that somehow, in some way, aliens are involved. It's hard to explain how the aliens are involved because it was confusing and didn't make much sense, but somehow they were. So, Hollywood took a great science fiction short story, added aliens, and called it a major motion picture.

Unfortunately, this does not work. You can't just add aliens into a story because you need to fill a two-hour time slot. And you can't just add aliens into a story because you think aliens are good for the box office. Aliens can absolutely ruin a movie. Aliens take a lot of explanation, so you can't have them as a side plot or as a minor detail. You just can't.

So, whenever I see a movie that all of a sudden inserts aliens into its plot, I instantly realize that I just wasted two hours of my life. Because there is no way (save for comedies) that aliens make a movie better if the movie itself is not an alien movie.

So don't go see The Box. And don't go see any movie hat breaks this rule.

Rear Window

So, my friends and I are going to a Rear Window screening this coming weekend. Rear Window is one of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest films, and, subsequently, one of his "vault" movies. (The vault movies are the five movies Hitchcock held the rights to and kept from the public for a serious of decades for his daughter.) If you have seen the Shia LeBouf movie Suburbia, then you should be familiar with Rear Window's plot, because it is essentially the same, just modernized. Rear Window is about a photographer, played by Jimmy Stewart, who is stuck in his apartment thanks to a broken leg. To pass the time, he watches his neighbors through his window overlooking the courtyard. As he is snooping, he notices the sudden disappearance of a woman across the way. Her husband claims she went on a trip, but Jimmy Stewart suspects murder.

The brilliance of this movie come with the doubt of whether or not there actually was a murder. The viewer really has no clue when watching this. The first time I saw the movie, I watched it just to find out if there was a murder. I'm not going to spoil the movie with too many details, but if you have not seen the movies yet, you may want to go ahead and skip to the next paragraph now. I would just like to address the fact that this movie has what I think is the most chilling scene I have ever seen in a movie. Jimmy Stewart's girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly, goes to the apartment of the supposed murder to investigate, while Stewart watches from across the courtyard in his own apartment. The husband catches her and while she is talking to the police, she stands by the window to signal something to Jimmy Stewart (I am trying to be as vague as possible so I do not ruin the movie). The part that freezes me up every single time I watch this movie (not to mention I may have shrieked the first time I ever saw it) is when the husband sees Grace Kelly's signal and follows her line of sight across the courtyard and glares-- and I mean glares-- at Jimmy Stewart. It is a very chilling glare, and one that Raymond Burr excelled in executing. And if you see this movie and get to this scene, there is no way you could deny the greatness of this film.

Rear Window has several elements to it that I think make it one of my favorite movies. The director is Alfred Hitchcock, one of my favorites. The lead actor is Jimmy Stewart, my favorite actor. And the lead actress is Grace Kelly, elegant, graceful, and very dramatic. Since this is still a relatively new blog, I shall now rank my favorite directors, actors, and actresses, so that my readers may get a glimpse, not only of what I like, but of how movies that combine these, like Rear Window, are destined to be great.

Mallory's Top 5 Directors:
1. Billy Wilder
2. Vincente Minelli
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Steven Spielberg
5. Rob Reiner

Mallory's Top 5 Actors:
1. Jimmy Stewart
2. Jimmy Cagney
3. Michael Caine
4. Cary Grant
5. Leonardo DiCaprio

Mallory's Top 5 Actresses:
1. Joan Fontaine
2. Judy Garland
3. Audrey Hepburn
4. Katharine Hepburn
5. Reese Witherspoon

If a movie has any of these elements, then it will most likely (and hopefully) be great. I did have to leave out some good people, but some of these just have a certain charismatic ability to make any of their roles great. Rear Window features Alfred Hitchcock's direction alongside Jimmy Stewart's acting, paired with a great screenplay and a fabulous invitation to the audience to immediately begin forming opinions as to what happened to this woman who suddenly disappeared. I highly recommend this movie, as it is one of my favorites.

Best Movie Score: The Magnificent Seven

Many people think John Williams (Jaws, E.T.) or Danny Elfman (Mission: Impossible) create great movie scores. I agree that they do, but the greatest move score of all time, in my opinion, is Elmer Bernstein's score for The Magnificent Seven.

photo from cinemametro.com

The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 movie based on the famous Seven Samurai from silent film times. The Magnificent Seven turns Seven Samurai into a western about a small village who hires seven cowboys to protect them from the bad guys. This movie is essentially parodied in Three Amigos! starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase (also a great movie- "Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?") The Magnificent Seven has big stars like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Robert Vaughn (who is now in those Smith & Hassler commercials). It's a great western and came out in the midst of the western era (yes, there was a time when every other movie made was a western). In fact, I put Magnificent Seven in my list of

Top Five Fave Westerns:

1. High Noon
2. The Searchers
3. The Magnificent Seven
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Later on I may type out a blog post explaining each of my choices, but I think I should note that the #5 spot was really close between The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Shane. Even so, The Magnificent Seven is a solid #3.

Anyways, I just wanted to point out to my friends that The Magnificent Seven has a fabulous soundtrack and score. In fact, it's score was nominated for an Oscar! If you want to hear some of score, just go on YouTube, where you can at least hear the theme song. And then if you like what you hear, see the movie and watch all the neat visuals that go along with that score!

Scary Movies Minus the Gore: The Orphanage

The other day, one of my friends was complaining that she rented a movie that was supposed to be so scary, but that she hated it because all the bloody, gory images disturbed her. "Does 'scary movie' mean 'gory' these days?" she whined. My opinion? Mostly, yes. But there are some good scary movies out there that do not have any gore. But these movies are probably better characterized as "suspenseful thrillers" or "psychological thrillers." But some of these movies are more than suspenseful. Some of these are the types of movies I cannot watch alone. Some of these are just downright scary.



The first of these movies is a Spanish film (pictured above, photo from smartcine.com) made in 2007 called The Orphanage. I don't recall most of the plot because it was one of those movies that I had to forget about as soon as possible just in order to get a good night's sleep. I do remember the ending, though, because it provided some explanation that made the movie less scary. I suppose that is because the director did not want to leave anyone with nightmares. Anyways, the plot, according to Netflix is (and I should point out that this is movie can be played instantly online if you have a Netflix account):

"Fueled by fond memories from her childhood, Laura (Belén Rueda)

persuades her husband (Fernando Cayo) to help her revamp a seaside

orphanage into a facility for disabled children. But soon after the couple

moves in, their son, Simón (Roger Príncep), begins exhibiting disturbing

behavior. As Laura tries to understand Simón's increasingly

malevolent actions, she becomes drawn into the house's terrifying

secrets in this unnerving chiller."

This movie was incredibly scary to me. It was good, and I gave it the five stars on Netflix, but man, it was scary. I highly recommend seeing this if you want a good scary movie without gore. And if subtitle bother you, I promise that with watching this, you'll soon forget you're reading subtitles because you'll be so enthralled by your fear.

I think now is a good time for me to address what makes a good scary movie: the unknown. Steven Spielberg knew this when he made Jaws. The monster is scary until you see him. The music made Jaws scary. When you heard the telltale tune played, you knew the shark was near, but you didn't know where. And you never knew how big he was because the movie never shows the entire shark. You're scared of what you're imagining the shark to be. That's the unknown. And the unknown is what makes movies scary.

This entry is the first installment in many to come where I feature a scary movie that lacks gore. Because gore just sucks. If I wanted to see all that bloody stuff, I would have gone to med school.

First Entry, Discussing Leap Year

I'll use this first entry to explain my blog. I saw a trailer for the new Amy Adams movie, Leap Year. It looks like a cute romantic comedy, and I like Amy Adams, who usually makes good movies. I probably will not see it until I am able to rent it from Netflix. However, I could not help comparing the apparent plot of the movie to that of the classic Rob Reiner film starring John Cusack, The Sure Thing. The Sure Thing features an east coast college girl on a road trip to the west coast to visit her boyfriend and on the way there, she falls in love with John Cusack. This seem strikingly similar to the plot of Leap Year, in which Amy Adams travels a long distance to propose to her boyfriend, and it seems as if she meets a man on the way that she falls in love with. I usually do not like it when movies are remade or storylines reused, but in this case it should work out.

The Sure Thing is a an eighties comedy that follows most of the classic eigthies stereotypes. It is a pretty good movie if you haven't seen it, mostly due to the charm of John Cusack paired with the great direction of Rob Reiner (You should probably take note that Rob Reiner is in my top five of fave directors). The plot itself is an easily adaptable plot that could be changed to match the sentiments of each decade, similar to the give-someone-of-the-opposite-sex-a-makeover-as-part-of-some-deal-and-then-fall-in-love storyline that has been used so many times. Thus, I think Leap Year will, if done well, turn out to be a good romantic comedy. If not, then it should at least be the type of movie that makes me smile by the end.

Case in point, this comparison between these two movies sparked my decision to create a movie blog. And I find it to be a good omen that at least two Leap Year trailers played came one during commercial breaks as I typed this. Hope you enjoy my blog!

UPDATE: I saw Leap Year. Great romantic comedy, just like I predicted. I totally recommend it :)