Thursday, May 28, 2009

?

Come one! Come all! Come to the amazing world premiere of this fantastic weekly feature!!! Feast your eyes upon the incredible ... um... (crickets chirping). Well, I haven't come up with a snazzy name for it but this is the beginning of a weekly feature blog that will discuss new movie releases. Each week I will tirelessly scour the internet for reviews and snippets to aid you in deciding where to spend your hard earned dollars at the multiplex.

This week we have a pair of cinematic offerings that either lifts us up or drags us down. The two movies are none other than Disney/Pixar's Up and the Sam Raimi directed horror flick, Drag Me to Hell.

The latest feature from the infamous Pixar team, Up is unsurprisingly getting rave reviews. The surprising part is that Pixar's chosen protagonist is a 78 year-old widower, voiced by Ed Asner. The story follows Carl, who has lost his wife and stodgily resists the progress around him. When the powers that be intend to move Carl out of his home to develop the area, things really blow up, as in hundreds of helium balloons lifting the house into a grand adventure. Unbeknownst to Carl, young Russell, a Wilderness Explorer (think Boy Scout), is stowed away on his make-shift dirigible. Of course, hilarious adventures ensue and, being a Disney/Pixar film, I'm sure a life lesson or two is learned.

We'll have to see how an older protag plays with the young audiences that are built into an animated feature, but the grown-up kids are definitely getting a rise out of Up. Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles critics ratings for there Tomatometer, award Up an outstanding 98%. Numerous sources, such as Josh Tyler for Cinemablend.com, cite the opening montage through Carl's life as a heart-wrenching sequence. Peter Sciretta over at slashfilm.com has also indicated that the digital 3-D for Up is especially effective at immersing you in the films action, so if you have that option it may be worth the upgrade. All in all if your looking for a great family film or just an emotional, fun animated adventure, then Up rises to the challenge.

Drag Me to Hell is the week's second major release and is a return to director Sam Raimi's roots. Raimi became a cult film icon with his Evil Dead series. With Drag Me to Hell, Raimi looks into one of the most frightening aspects of the world around us... home foreclosure. Well, that and curses, demons, and Hell. The film tells the story of Christine, played by Alison Lohman, as she tries to work her way up the corporate ladder at a mortgage bank. Along the way, she is forced to reject an old womans payment extension. Facing eviction from her home, the elderly woman puts a curse on Christine that will come to fruition in three days.

Raimi brings campy fun to the screen in this PG-13 horror film. Drag Me to Hell seems to be resonating with most critics with a solid 94% on the Tomatometer. The film intersperses moments of levity with shots that are "grab-your-heart-medicine scary" as Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune put it. Just remember, this is a different kind of horror film than Hollywood has been rolling out. Drag Me to Hell is neither an Asian remake or a brutal gorefest. It's shocking imagery is interjected with campy humor. This is the director that previously brought us a hero with a chainsaw attached to his arm, so if you like your scares of the tongue in cheek variety drag yourself to the theater.

That's all for this week. Tune in to see what I find for next week's feature. Also, I'd gladly take into consideration any ideas people have for the title of this weekly section left in the comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment