"Buried" with Ryan Reynolds: Simply Brilliant.

If you've never heard of it before, Buried is an independent thriller recently made about a man who awakes in a pine box coffin buried in the earth. And yes, the entire movie is in one location. This location. The coffin. The epitome of low-budget filmmaking done so exquisitely well, it would make any producer or director jealous at the simplicity and brilliance of it all.

I was reluctant to see the movie when I heard it took place in a single location. Especially when it's a coffin, not exactly much eye candy to look at. At least Tom Hanks had an island in Cast Away. Ryan Reynolds has a wooden box.

The premise of the movie is this: Paul Conroy wakes up in a box, buried alive. At first we don't know why he's there, but as he lights the coffin with the zippo lighter given to him and we watch as the criminal calls him on the cell phone placed by his side, we begin seeing the plot unfold. As he calls his would-be rescuers, we see him go through the intense emotions that anyone would have being in that situation until help arrives.

I thought I'd get bored with his movie, given the setting. But I was surprisingly not bored at all. Not even once. The director, Rodrigo Cortés, and his director of photography does an amazing job with the angles and camera pushes to keep in interesting. In filmmaking, lighting is always a concern. How do you light a movie that takes place in a coffin without the audience asking "Where is that light coming from?" By giving the actor a zippo lighter to create warm light and a cell phone for cool light. And it worked amazingly well.

And Ryan Reynolds? That man deserves an award. His reactions and emotions are all believable, to say the least. It was awesome that he decided to do this 'smaller' film when he has huge projects like Green Lantern on his belt. I don't know anyone who doesn't appreciate his work, he seems to be loved by all. And I think that's well-deserved.

My advice: make his movie the next movie you rent. You won't be disappointed.

"Face Off" - the New SYFY Show About Special FX Makeup

SYFY's new show, Face Off, premiered last night and was a lot of fun to watch. If you're an artist or sci-fi lover, or just love movie monsters, you'll be wowed by the creatures the contestants create on this reality show. Yes, it's a reality show. The special fx make-up artists are elimated every week until one is chosen by a big studio. The viewers won't much care about the competition so much as watching the cool creatures that come out of the competition.

It's definitely a fun show. If it was on any station but SYFY, it might night last. A few years ago, there was a filmmaker reality show called On the Lot on Fox, which I enjoyed, but failed miserably in ratings. But I think this new show about movie fx magic has a better shot, not just beacuse it's on Syfy, but it's much more instant gratification being that you can see the creatures form and take shape much faster than you can see a short film being made.

But this is a fun show, I think it can be enjoyed by all. If you don't like monsters or special fx, you're lame. Check your listings for SYFY and tune in next Wednesday to check it out.

To Give Back or To Be Creative. That is the Question.

I've often struggled with the concept of what to focus my filmmaking talents on. I have two movies I plan to do, one an inspirational documentary about people living with Cerebral Palsy; the other: an intensely unique horror thriller about the undead meant to re-invent the zombie genre. One of these movies will educate and inspire the world on a very special group of people who need their voice to be heard. The other is a horror movie with creatures, blood, and dead people.

Being a huge advocate for self-development and inspiration, I've struggled which of my passions to focus on. Should I give back to society in a positive way and create the inspiring documentary? Well, obviously I 'should'. So why would I focus on a creature movie over that? I've heard over and over in the self-development world that your life is about giving to society, to positively impacting those around you. Yet, why am I more inspired to do the creature flick? Because it's creative.

Ever since a little boy(and I still consider myself a little boy. If I still had my Gi Joes and monsters, I'd be playing with them right now!), I had a very active imagination. Comic books. Monsters. Aliens. Science Fiction. Star Wars. And being an artist, I always drew comic books and creatures. I even got in trouble in 7th grade biology class when I was caught drawing monsters with my friend, Kevin. We were having a monster draw-off, how could I resist?

So this arena, this genre, has always been in my spirit. To create new worlds and new beings from nothing. Even to this day, I can sit for hours and imagine scenarios in my head of heroes and villains and beasts fighting and interacting. It's called imagination. That's my world. And I love it. But this kind of creativity is not something I can really tap into when doing a documentary about people with Cerebral Palsy. That would be basic interviewing, showing the life of, and having a voiceover. And it would be very beautiful and uplifting. Yet it still doesn't tap into my basic spiritual need to create. But it does benefit the world. It's a more enlightened project.

Obviously, we're still a very primitive society. If we weren't, movies like Friday the 13th wouldn't appeal to so many people. If we were an enlightened society, all we'd have to watch is Sesame Streetand home cooking infomercials.

I think we have to take some responsibility as to what we put out there. But everyone loves playing pretend. And that's what movies offer us: a chance, as an actor, to have our head cut off by Jason, or to watch a head getting cut off, knowing that one's really getting hurt. Movies allow us to pretend again. To be the kind of kids we want to grow up to be like. To make-believe in our own backyard, knowing we are totally safe.

Unfortunately, our subconscious minds don't know this. Our subconscious takes everything literally. It doesn't know what's fake or real. Would you plop your baby down in front of the tv to watch Friday the 13th? Probably not. Why? Because you know it will affect them. You may not know how it will affect them, but you know it won't be good.

I've never been a fan of slasher flicks, and refuse to see Hostel for that very reason. It's a little too primitive for me. A madman cutting people up is not what I call entertainment. But throw a monster or time travel in there, and I'm all for it.

But can a horror movie benefit the world? It's a project that can genuinely connect people. Create a unified team of excited people behind a totally awesome movie. It could not only promote the actors involved, but the uplift the entire production team as well. As the movie becomes profitable, it will allow us to re-invest that money into more movies and a bigger production house.

I fully plan on doing both movies in time, but the horror thriller, On the 7th Dawn, is what excites me. And after all, shouldn't we follow our passions? I'd love your opinion on this. Should we, as a society, only express ourselves in ways that are of the highest ideals and betterment of society? And if so, at the sake of our current passions for the sake of 'duty?' Or is there a middle ground to take, to be responsible with the energy we put out there, but still be able to satisfy the hunger of our creative selves?

I'd love to hear your opinion on this. What do you think?

Review of The Horde

I kept hearing about this French movie called The Horde, so I made a point to see it. I don't get that excited for most movies, especially zombie movies as they're all the same, but do to the hype, I was filled with the nerves of anticipation for this one. Knowing it was even subtitled (and I hate subtitles! No, this doesn't mean I'm not 'cultured,' it just means I don't like missing the movie by having to focus on the words on the bottom of the screen! Unless it begins with "In a galaxy, far far away..." I don't like having to read my movies. But there is an English version on the DVD, and after a while, you don't even notice that the lips don't perfectly match.)

As I understand it, this is France's first offical zombie movie. If I had to decribe the zombies, I'd say they fall into the realm of vampire zombies. They're strong, quick, move in the night, and at times seem all powerful. Hence, vampires zombies.

I wasn't blown away by the flick, it didn't offer anything new, no new thoughts or monster, or ideas about zombism, but it was a bloody, dark, fun intense ride. Nothng deep, or profound, just....zombies.

I love the main villain, a nigerian character, he's very cool and badass. It's more of an action movie than a horror movie. But if you love blood and action, you'll love this movie. Nothing special, but definitely worth the watch.

Are There Truly Any New Ideas?

 

As I gather my ideas for my zombie monster film On the 7th Dawn, I find just how difficult it is to create a strinkingly new and original idea, something that hasn't been beaten to death, or  at least touched on, previously in either movies, books, or comic books. Even if the idea has never been used in the context in which I'm doing it, it has somehow been done in some way, or something like it.

I plan for this flick to be dynamic and original, but can anything really be original? If something is too original, it will fail because no one can relate to it, since it is completely original and foreign to the audience. Something so unique, though a failure in its day, will one day be said to be "ahead of its time." But only in the future. Of course, this still won't help the movie, because it was still a failure in its day.

If we can't relate a thing to something else, we have no reference. And if we have no reference, we can completely blind to it.

For example, if we see a movie play in the fourth dimension, we wouldn't even know what we're look at, if we see it at all. So playing a movie in the fourth dimension would be useless to us.

But let's say a fourth dimensional being pops into our universe, we may not know what it is, we don't recognize it, so we don't see it. We may see something from the corner of our eye and turn to look and then see nothing, believing it to be our imagination. But 300 years in the future our society now lives with fourth-dimensial beings. We now see them walk in and out of our reality, and seeing this is completely normal. Now we watch fourth-dimensional movies like no big deal, because we can relate it to something else: our fourth dimensional friends.

Hmmm...maybe that was too far out there.

I guess the mission would be to create something that has the feel of something new, but be based on things we can relate to and are familiar with.

The movie Cowboys & Aliens. Is this a new idea? Or two familiar ideas put together? We know aliens. We know cowboys. Put them together and you have a 'new' movie idea. We can relate to it. We can't relate to a movie called "Sifflex of the 19,412th Dimensional Portal of Orr-Van Dool vs. The Blockaal Miuune of Triasta." We have no reference so we can't relate and it will be a flop. But in 1000 years it'll be the best things since sliced you-know-what, a cult classic.(and don't even think of stealing that title, dude, or I beat you!)

But if we knew that Sifflex and Orr-Van Dool were the names of a populated planet and city in another galaxy and Blockaal Miuune is an intergalactic warlord of his planet called Triasta, theeen we can make sense of it because we can relate to it.

How do we create something uniquely original? And as movie-watchers and filmmakers, do we truly want something original? Or something old, packaged slighty different? The verdict is still out on that one. I'd love your thoughts on it.

 What's an original movie in your opinion and why?