One Missed Plotline

One Missed Call, D-

I ended the year with AVPR (review here), and started the movie with this fabulous piece of work. Let's begin with 2008, shall we?

The victims in this comedy horror flick receive a phone call that tells when they will be killed, what color shoes they'll be wearing, the brand of their hair gel, who they last kissed, when their last bowel movement was, their grandmother's maiden name, their grandmother's social security number, the name of their favorite indie band, who killed Kennedy, and other startling facts. Once they've been marked, they see strange things like babies on fire, bugs crawling through people's skin, dolls wielding knives, men with pennies jammed up their noses, feet covered in bird feathers, dogs walking backwards, and other unsettling and fairly cliche horror shticks. When the victims finally die in gruesome but accidental ways, a hard candy is found in their mouth, a tattoo telling you where you left your bank card behind their ear..... okay, I'm getting a little bored with this. But honestly, it was just cram-packed with the dumbest, most unrelated visuals I've seen in any movie. The plot resolution isn't much more coherent either. I should have figured this is what I get for an early January release that sneak previews at 10PM on the evening before it opens, and your big name is Margaret Cho.

I'm disappointed in this movie for a variety of reasons. Here's the rundown:

• Atlanta shot movie. I'd love to see good movies come out of Atlanta, but when this is what you associate with the film scene here, it's not much help. I will say the hospital set was absolutely beautiful. I didn't recognize it, but it has to be an abandonment in Atlanta.


• The trailer was actually pretty good. I usually don't care for horror trailers, but this one was appealing in some way. That's rare for me.


• It starred one of my new favorite actors, Shannyn Sossamon. She also starred in what was my favorite film of 2007 Wristcutters: A Love Story. She did as much as she could with it, so props Shannyn.

Oh, and for once I'd like to see college students living in a dumpy apartment with 9 other people, and not in lavish mansions by themselves. Who are these people? I'd kill them too.

One Missed Call is one painful ride. Save your time (thankfully my experience was free), and go see a Christmas film. Drag the season out.

Glorious Number 60 - AVP: Worst Yet

Aliens vs Predator - Requiem, F

This was the grand number 60 of the year, rung in at 1AM on Friday the 28th. I could not have ended on a more disappointing note, but it pretty much sums up the experience for the year. There were a few ups, but in general the year in movies was wandering through the dark valley of WGA written nonsense. Go ahead and strike - I'll take my chances with 1,000,000 monkeys on word processors.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Right, like you'll ever even rent this.

Having seen the first movie in this set, I knew roughly what to expect, but had hopes for so much more. Previously on AVP, a teenage Predator gets in over his head at the Alien arcade and mommy and daddy have to come rescue him. And there's people somewhere. I wish that were a joke, but it's the plot, I swear. Basically the only way you could lose a bet is if you put all your eggs in the baskets of the Aliens (ha, sucker).

The latest installment in this should be amazing series, was AVPR - which stands for Not Another AVP Failure (more or less). There are no major stars, not even a failed stand up comedian or a former Disney Channel star. I didn't read the title right, and failed to notice it said "Predator"... not plural. The trailers led me to believe there were hordes of Aliens and an army of Predators to stop them at all cost, even when mowing down Marines (which there were about 5 of in the movie). They chickened out and didn't show a single gruesome moment. I don't know what else to say other than it was a complete disappointment and failure.

It gets the fabulous F mostly because it was so boring, I could hardly stay awake. You've got to be really bad to pull that off. I even stayed awake through Nancy Drew at 1AM, so that's saying something.

Goodbye 2007, I will remember you as an incredible waste of time peppered with a few meaningful experiences.

By the way, movie reviews for 2008 will be living on my blog at visceralcognition.com, all you have to do is hit the blog and search for "movie reviews", or just hit the movie review tag in the left column. I may attempt to import the archives here into there, but I just don't see that happening. Thanks for reading!