A review of "Freaks"

Confessions of a Film Junkie:  A review of “Freaks”

By: Brian Cotnoir

     Director Tod Browning broke all sorts of barriers and standards of film when he directed his 1932 film, “Freaks”.  Browning first gained his notoriety in the cinema world in the early 1930’s for his collaborations with early horror movie icon stars Lon Chaney Sr. and Bela Lugosi; Browning was the director of the original film “Dracula” (1931).  One year later Browning decided to push the envelope of shock value in horror films and make the movie “Freaks”.                                         “Freaks” is set in France in the late 18^th century and tells the story of a group of circus performers.  One of the circus performers, a midget named Hans, falls madly in love with a trapeze artist named Cleopatra.  Hans begins to buy Cleopatra gifts and lend her money because he believes that she loves him, but Cleopatra doesn’t really have any feelings for Hans; she’s just using him to get whatever she wants.  One day Cleopatra finds out that Hans has inherited a large fortune and decides that she will marry him and then poison him so she can inherit Hans’s fortune and run off with her lover—the strong man, “Hercules”.  However, if the other circus performers find out about Cleo’s plans they could be ruined and she and Hercules could be in a lot of trouble.                                      
     I really like how Browning cast actual circus “freaks” in this film.  Many people who saw this film in theatres walked out before the films shocking ending because they were appalled and repulsed by the people that appeared on the screen.  Browning actually posted in a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that basically said that the people that appeared in his film were real people and just because they look different it doesn’t mean that they should be judged or looked down upon and that everyone is unique and special.  I was absolutely blown away at how sensitive and ahead of its time this film is on the issue.  All the freaks that appear in the film are memorable and really likeable and here’s a fun trivia fact; the actor who played Hans in this film, Harry Earles, was also a member of the “lollipop guild” in the “Wizard of Oz”.                   
    I cannot say enough nice things about how great this film truly is; it is definitely my current favorite classic-film, and I think it should be seen by everyone.

A review of "Pride & Glory"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A Review of “Pride & Glory”

By: Brian Cotnoir

            One of the most dissapointing films I’ve ever seen is the 2008 cop-drama “Pride & Glory”.  When I first saw the trailer for “Pride & Glory” I was very excited; it looked mysterious, action packed, and was starring my favorite actor, Edward Norton.  What I got after seeing this was total dissapointment.  This film could have been great, but unfortunately it was one giant failure.                              

          The story of “Pride & Glory” is the following; Detective Ray Tierney, played by Edward Norton, is a policeman with the NYPD, along with his older brother, Francis, and brother in-law, Jimmy.  One night four of Francis’s men are gunned down during a drug raid and his brother Ray is assigned to the investigation.  Ray quickly discovers that the man they are looking for is a local drug dealer named Angel Teaso.  While searching for Teaso, Detective Tierney discovers that a group of cops from his precinct have been doing murder-for-hire and that the head of this murder-for-hire ring is his brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan.  Ray brings this news to his father, an ex- NYPD detective, and his father, who is played by John Voight, pleads with his son not to tell anyone what he has discovered in fear that the news might tear the whole family apart.  Ray is left with a tough decision, does he come forward with his discovery and turn in his brother in-law or does he keep quiet about everything?                                                                                                                 
          Like I said, the trailer led on that this film was going to be more action packed than it really was.  Just by watching the trailer it looked like Norton’s character was going to be a tough, take-no-bull-shit detective, when in actuality his character was a total pushover.  The whole film he’s taking orders from his father, his brother, his brother in-law, and they all expect him to take the fall so that the rest of the family remains unharmed and can stay out of trouble.  The real star of this film in my opinion is Colin Farrell.  I’m not a Collin Farrell fan, but I think he did a great job as the good cop turned murderer, Jimmy Egan.  Farrell’s character is psychotic, driven, manipulative, and just pure evil.  One scene in the film actually shows Farrell threataning to burn a newborn baby with an iron if he doesn’t get any answers from a witness he’s illegally interogating; that scene right there is absolutely terrifying.  I also like actor Shea Whigham in this film.  He plays a cop and one of Jimmy Egan’s goons, but his character is at times very imcompetent, but still he provides some comedic relief.  The rest of the cast his really hit and miss.  John Voight does a great job as the family patriarch, Francis Tierney, Sr., but his characeter isnt’t really all that likeable, and I didn’t really like the performance of Noah Emmerich’s character, Francis Tierney, Jr.                                        
          This film isn’t awful, but certanily could have been a lot better.  I’ve seen films similar to this with Edward Norton that were better than “Pride & Glory”, but this film still did not live up to the hype and potential it could’ve lived up to.

A review of "Heavy Metal"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Heavy Metal”

By: Brian Cotnoir

            “Heavy Metal” is the closest thing that you can get to experiencing an acid trip without actually taking drugs.  The first time I saw this 1980’s animated cluster-fuck of insanity I had to pause it, turn on the lights, and make an observation of my surroundings to make sure that I was, inded, not having an acid trip.  This film is just weird, and I mean that in both a good and bad way.  The film was made in 1981 based off of a magzine of the same title.  There’s really no story-line to the film.  I actually think that they just took 5 separate stories from the magazine and tried to link them together to this glowing green orb known as the Loc-Nar.  The Loc-Nar, like I said, is a small glowing green orb that has traveled through, space, time, and parallel universes.  The Loc-Nar is described as the “sum of all evils” in the film and has powers that can change or destroy the universe, and man, as well as aliens.                                                                                                   
        The film has a great soundtrack featuring songs and peformances by many great bands, such as Sammy Hagar, Black Sabbath, Devo, Cheap Trick, and many more.  The film also features the voice work of actors such as John Candy and Eugene Levy.   The artwork for this film is also very creative; extremely weird, but creative.  This isnt childrens animated movie though, this is an adult movie with scenes of animated graphic nudity, sex, and drug use.  Before I saw this film I never would’ve thought that aliens enjoyed snorting large amounts of drugs or that robots like having sex with humans.                                                                               

        “Heavy Metal” is strange, it’s confusing, and I’m not really sure what all the stories have to do with one another; I still say using the Loc-Nar to relate all the stories is a real stretch. Still, I found the artwork and the music to be enjoyable, but other than that this film sucked.  I’m sure if I took gratuitous amounts of drugs that this film would make a lot more sense, but I for one have no intention of doing that in order to find out.

A review of "Oliver Twist" (1922)

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A Review of “Oliver Twist” (1922)

By: Brian Cotnoir

            I’m not really a huge fan of silent films, but wow did my impression of them change after watching the 1922 silent classic, “Oliver Twist”.  The story of “Oliver Twist” was of course based off of the novel by the great Charles Dicken’s and tells the story of a young orphan boy, Oliver Twist.  Oliver’s mother died shortly after giving birth to him and he was raised in a workhouse.  While, in the workhouse Oliver stirs up some controversey by asking for some more gruel.  Oliver, is severely punished for his menial request, but is later saved when he is purchased by an Undertaker by the name of Sowberry, who takes Oliver in as an apprentice.  The life of an Undertaker’s apprentice is not the life style that the young Mr. Twist has dreamed of and he runs away in hopes of finding a new life in London.  While in London, Oliver is found by a young boy known as “the Artful Dodger”, and he takes Oliver to a good friend of his named Fagin.  Fagin immidieatley takes a shine to Oliver as does Oliver to Fagin, until Oliver uncovers that Fagin and the other boys in Fagin’s homes are gang of roaming pick-pockets and thieves.  Now, it’s up to our young hero to stop Fagin and the others and uncover who he really is.                      

      Even though it’s a silent film and there have been other films made based on the story of “Oliver Twist”, I still like this one the best.  What I like best about this version of the film is the cast.  Everyone in the 1922 film looks and acts the part of their character.  Actor Lewis Sargent does a wonderful job as the troubled Noah Claypool, Edouard Trebaol is a quite funny as the pick-pocketing scamp the Artful Dodger, and Lon Chaney plays a very frightening Fagin, but the Best Actor hands down in this film is the star of “Oliver Twist”, Jackie Coogan.  The films director, Frank Lloyd, couldn’t have picked a better child actor than Jackie Coogan to play the young, kind-hearted orphan, Oliver Twist.  Throughout the film Coogan is chased, beat, used, and tossed around like a rag doll; all this adds up to comedic and cinematic gold.  It’s actually quite a shame that when people start listing the greatest child actors of all-time that Coogan is often over looked to other child actors, like Macauly Culkin, Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, and Dakota Fanning.  Jackie Coogan is one of the most underrated and underappreciated actors in Hollywood history and I think every child start owes Jackie Coogan a lot of gratitude for setting the bar and the standard of what it really means and takes to be a child star.  So if you are a serious fan of films, then you should check out the Silent movie classic “Oliver Twist”.

A review of "How to Be"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A Review of “How To Be”

By: Brian Cotnoir

                “How To Be” is an independent comedy/drama starring Robert Pattinson, who plays a confused and depressed teenage musician, named Arthur.  Arthur suffers a number of personal setbacks and seeks help from Dr. Levi Ellington, a therapist from Canada.  Dr. Ellington agrees to fly out to England to help Arthur with his personal problems (for a fee).  What follows is a montage of bland humor and self-loathing.                                                                                                                                                                                                     
               Pattinson’s character, Arthur, goes through a variety of emotions that range from over emotional, depressed, neurotic, psychotic, totally pathetic, and at points mildly humorous.  For the most part his character is very bland; like tofu spread on wheat toast dipped in hot water bland!  Pattinson’s role isn’t terrible but I did not find his character to be very likeable.  Compared to some of the other characters in this film, Pattinson does the best job out of all of them.  Rebecca Pidgeon, who plays Arthur’s neglectful mother, is absolutely terrible in this film; she does one of the worst acting performances I have ever seen in a film.  The late Powell Jones character, Dr. Ellington, comes off as slightly creepy and at times his “methods” appear to be highly irrational.                                                                                      
       
          I will give Rob Pattinson some credit; he actually sang and performed some of the songs written for the movie and that takes balls no matter who you are.  Pattinson doesn’t have a great voice, but he at least he tried.  This film in not terrible, but I really can’t think of any group recommend this film too, unless you’re a fan of whiny, pathetic, Emo boys.

A Tribute to Actor Christopher McDonald

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A tribute to Actor Christopher McDonald

By: Brian Cotnoir

Actor Christopher McDonald is one of the most underrated and overlooked actors Hollywood has ever seen.  He may not be as famous an actor as someone like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Johnny Depp; actors who most people could name films they’ve been in off the top of their head, but most people fail to realize that they have seen McDonald in many movies before and have not even realized it and today we are going to pay homage to McDonald and the great acting he has brought to us over the years.  The first film McDonald ever appeared in was “Grease 2” a film that many people considered—myself included—a God awful movie, but fortunately McDonald would receive better roles in better movies.                                         

     
     McDonald has appeared in many great and notable movies such as “Thelma & Louise”, “Fatal Instinct”, “Grumpy Old Men”, “Flubber”, “SLC Punk”, “The Iron Giant”, “Requiem for a Dream”, and “The Perfect Storm” are just a few of the many movies McDonald has appeared in over the years, but the one film most people know Christopher McDonald from is the 1996 Sports Comedy “Happy Gilmore”, where he played the rival golfer Shooter McGavin.                                                         
    Since “Happy Gilmore” McDonald has been kind of type-casted in the role as the obvious villain; the type of character that really doesn’t display any kind of character complexity and is easily identifiable as the films villain.  However, he doesn’t always play the role of the obvious villain in the films he appears in; he’s actually quite funny in the film “Chances Are”, “Splinterheads”, and “SLC Punk” (even though he only appears briefly as a supporting character in those films) and I think he is one of the better underrated actors in the history of film.  So here’s to you Christopher McDonald for bringing us many great performances and always playing a wonderful obvious villain.

A review of "Silent Hill"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A Review of “Silent Hill”

By: Brian Cotnoir

                Based off the popular video games series, “Silent Hill” is one of my favorite horror movies of all-time.  Now, I will admit the story in the film is not very accurate to the video game story, which I have played as well, but still I found this to be an extremely entertaining and well-made horror film.                            

               The story of “Silent Hill” is the following; Christoper and Rose De Silva adopted their daughter Sharon when she was a baby, and years later Sharon has began sleep walking.  Sharon cries out “Silent Hill!” as she sleepwalks.  So Sharon’s mother decides to take her daughter to the place that she cries out at night, Silent Hill, West Virginia, but Rose and Sharon are followed by a female police officer into Silent Hill, which leads to a fierce chase that ends in a crash.  When Rose comes to, Sharon is missing and she is the mysterious, ashy world of Silent Hill.  Now trapped in the dark, grainy world it is up to Rose and Police officer Cybil Bennet, to find Sharon and find their way out of the bleak hell that is Silent Hill.               

              As I mentioned before; Silent Hill is based off of a popular video game series by the same name.  The story of the game and the story of the film are significantly different; too different for me to go into detail, if you want more detail play the game and then watch the movie yourself.  I have to say even though I found the game scarier than the film I still think film is awesome.  I am a fan of the game “Silent Hill” and I don’t care that the writer(s) of the film changed the story; they still made a really awesome film.  I say that “Silent Hill” is one of my favorite horror films because this is the film that put my belief back in horror films and made me believe that they could be scary and that they could be entertaining.  The films story is very mysterious and is filled with violent and scary imagery.  Plus, the charcter Alessa Gillespie is one of my top 10 Best Movie Villains.   Finally, I have to say to the the films director, Christopher Gans, I salute you, sir; you made a great film.