Quick Movie Review

The Single Moms Club (2014, USA) | Rating: 2/5
Similar to Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, I kinda had somewhat high expectations for this movie. I was hoping Tyler Perry would be stepping into somewhat new territory compared to his stage play conversions. But honestly, I was afraid of having said expectations since I was so let down by that problematic movie. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have any discomfort with this movie and it is a little different. It does sadly fall back on the usual Perry cliches concerning race and stereotypes, but it was...tolerable. The movie requires some suspension of disbelief as a few things are unrealistic, but taking into account that this is a Tyler Perry flick, you tend to turn your brain off when viewing, at least that's what I do. It's not exactly the most empowering film that you'd want to expect from something like this, but it's decent.



Maniac (2013, France) | Rating: 3/5
I saw this movie in a preview of another movie and it appeared to be interesting as Elijah Wood tends to play more innocent characters, so seeing him as a killer was an interesting experience. An even more interesting experience was how majority of the film was shot. Most of the movie is through the point of view of our main character and killer. Occasionally, it does switch to third person, but this experimental perspective opens your eyes to what the killer sees and perhaps understand his dilemma. Before watching this movie, I had no idea that this was a remake of a 1980's movie of the same name. I don't know if I'll be viewing that for comparison, but this movie was pretty entertaining and the first person point of view added some interesting points to the movie that made me want to somewhat recommend it. The content didn't completely blow me away, but it still managed to keep me very engaged. The characters are simple, but interesting as the two main characters are both different yet similar. So, watching them interact and wondering how bad it's going to become in the climax was exciting.



Syrup (2013, USA) | Rating: 3/5
What brought me to this "obscure" movie was a gif set that popped up every now and then on Tumblr pertaining the different types of women men see or identify. It held a lot of truth, so I looked it up and read the summary and, of course, the rest is history. I watched the movie, which is about marketing and branding and how society responds to it. It also has hints about how corporations as well. I learned afterwards that this is based off a book and a few commentators on IMDb were a little unhappy that they didn't match up. I might look into the book later, but as a movie alone I thought it was both entertaining and informative. There is a lot of truth spoken about image, branding, and public response. The story itself is pretty loose and could've been written better, but it didn't bother me too much.



The Quiet Ones (2014, USA) | Rating: 2/5
When this was in theaters, I contemplated seeing this movie when I heard some kinda good things about it, but my first opinion stuck out the most...it looked like everything else [read as: not that good]. Of course, harmless rental from my workplace and the only thing spent was my time. I had no idea where this movie was going or completely what it was about. While watching it, I kept thinking of The Conjuring and how bad this movie wants to be like it with its similar style in certain places, the inspiration from true events, the conclusion by tying in said true events, and the atmosphere. I will admit that this movie isn't as bad as I thought it would be and I don't regret watching it like a lot of recently dumb possession movies I've been curious about, but the added potential romance and awkward sexual cliches made it lose a few points. Obviously, The Conjuring is better, but this wasn't terrible in the least.



The Sacrament (2011, USA) | Rating: 1/5
I think I'm going through this masochistic phase of purposely picking horror movies I think are going to be bad, but somehow knowing that they're not going to damage my brain afterwards...at least I got lucky with this one. Going into this movie, I had a feeling it was going to be bad because it was associated with Eli Roth and I really dislike that man's work. I'm very much aware that he didn't direct this movie, but still...his name is on the cover, so some responsibility is on him. Also, I didn't know that this was loosely based on actual events and a bunch of people on IMDb didn't understand why they didn't incorporate or associate with said events, despite there being a "better" movie out there about the mass murders. I looked into this little conflict, while I was watching the movie, and wondered the same thing. They used a real magazine group, VICE, and yet they changed everything else and dramaticized it for horror purposes which was silly.


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