Movie Review: IT...

"Hiya, Georgie." So earlier today, I watched the big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling novel It...and needless to say, it was both funny and intense. It was a mixture of The Goonies and Stand by Me (which, of course, was based on Stephen King's earlier novella The Body), with a hungry, demonic clown as the main antagonist. Speaking of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (portrayed here with a sinister playfulness by Bill Skarsgård), this shape-shifting, child-eating creature is definitely the stuff of nightmares. From his opening scene where he greets 6-year-old Georgie (played by Jackson Robert Scott) from inside that sewer drain, to a moment later in the film where he reveals his true physical self to the Losers' Club (the group of kids who would ultimately defeat him—for the time being) inside that wellhouse, Pennywise didn't waste a moment to terrify his victims before dismembering them within the sewers of the small town of Derry, Maine.



It was funny in that all of the kids who comprised the Losers' Club shared witty banter that was definitely realistic of what kids joked about during the 1980s. Most of the zingers came from Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), who went from remarking that only the virgins in the group (which apparently was everyone in the Losers' Club but Richie himself) could see Pennywise when others couldn't, to him commenting that Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor) was "leaking hamburger helper" after Pennywise slices the portly boy's stomach with his claws during that wellhouse scene mentioned in the previous paragraph. And prior to entering the wellhouse, the Losers had to draw straws to see who would be the lucky one to wait outside while everyone else headed into Pennywise's dreadful lair. Richie drew the short straw, but commented that things would've been different if they "measured the size of their d**ks" instead. Aw, juvenile humor.



In regards to It's intensity, not a single moment goes by when the Losers' Club isn't harassed by Pennywise or a fellow citizen of Derry. Along with the monstrous clown, the Losers are also tormented by Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his high school band of bullies...to the point where Bowers and his gang also find themselves on a collision course with Pennywise himself. The heroine of the Losers' Club, Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis) also has to deal with being slut-shamed at school as well as going home to an abusive father who may or may not be having an inappropriate relationship with her. And Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) thinks he's ill when his mom was giving him placebos to make him feel sick just so he would stay home with her most of the time. Clearly, the Losers are in no position to win as long as they're living in the small, messed-up town of Derry.



Overall, It was more emotional than it was terrifying. It revolved around Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) and his quest to find out what happened to his little brother Georgie after he went missing a year earlier. And the moments between Beverly and Ben were sweet...even after she found out that he was a fan of New Kids on the Block. (BTW, with most of It taking place in 1989, I liked how it featured references to Tim Burton's first Batman movie, Lethal Weapon 2 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5—which all came out in theaters that year.) Director Andy Muschietti and his writers were definitely mindful of having us care about the Losers before having them get bloodied up by Pennywise in the film's finale.



All-in-all, It was a commendable flick. This movie is actually 'Chapter One' in the horror story, with Warner Bros. yet to approve the production of Chapter Two (though I'm sure that will be a sure thing after the box office results for this opening weekend come in). In Chapter Two, the Losers' Club will be grown-up...with its members returning to Derry in the present day to confront Pennywise for the final time. I can't wait to see which adult actors will be cast to portray Bill, Ben, Richie, Eddie, Beverly and company...and how Pennywise will use modern technology to further his reign of terror in the hapless city of Derry, and maybe elsewhere. But in the meantime, I recommend watching this current installment of the It franchise if you're a horror movie buff. I saw the film mostly because I'm a fan of villainous clowns—hence why Heath Ledger's Joker makes The Dark Knight my all-time favorite Batman flick (Jack Nicholson, you're still awesome), and why that zombie clown in 2009's Zombieland was hilariously badass—and wanted to see just how delightfully frightful Skarsgård's Pennywise would be. Sure enough, he delivered. Please greenlight It: Chapter 2, Warner Bros. Thank you.

See ya, Georgie.

Batman vs. Superman...

So it was announced earlier today that Jesse Eisenberg (of Zombieland and The Social Network fame) and Jeremy Irons will appear in the 2016 sequel to last year's Man of Steel. Eisenberg will play nemesis Lex Luthor in Batman vs. Superman, while Irons replaces Michael Caine (and the late Michael Gough before him) as Alfred. While I'm cool with Irons playing Bruce Wayne's trusty butler, it obviously remains to be seen how Eisenberg will do as Superman's arch-enemy. Either this will be the greatest casting choice for a comic book villain since Heath Ledger was announced as The Dark Knight's Joker in 2006, or...fans will simultaneously complain about this and Ben Affleck donning the Bat cowl for the next year or so.



A big question remains: Will Eisenberg shave his head or don a skull cap as he takes on the role of Kal-El's bald adversary? Or will Luthor look like Eisenberg's wacky doppelgänger (Andy Samberg) from the FOX TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine? We'll see.

World War Z... "Mother Nature is a serial killer." This line is one of several memorable aspects about the new Brad Pitt flick, which I watched at the theater earlier today. World War Z, like the video game-adapted zombie franchise Resident Evil, takes place on a global scale (hence the former movie's title). However, unlike Resident Evil, the worldwide takeover by the walking dead (who quickly overrun everything as if they're the mammalian equivalent of fire ants) is conveyed in a more intelligent fashion in World War Z...with Pitt acting as much of a badass in this film as Milla Jovovich did in Evil—albeit with fewer weapons at Pitt's disposal. World War Z provides as much a unique take on the zombie apocalypse as the 2009 comedy flick Zombieland, and even this year's horror/romance movie, Warm Bodies (which is about a zombie who falls in love with a girl whose boyfriend's brain the zombie made a meal out of earlier... I kid you not). Of course, this film probably wouldn't have been as good without the presence of Angelina Jolie's beau (okay, not true— Tom Cruise, Matt Damon or Denzel Washington would've fit the main role just as perfectly)...who conveys such coolness as a former United Nations inspector that we actually believe that he has the guts to drink a can of Pepsi while a horde of vicious zombies rush down a hallway towards him in a climactic scene (as well as nonchalantly cutting the hand off an Israeli soldier after she gets bit in the arm by a zombie—even though Pitt's character had no inkling that this brutal amputation would stop her from turning). "Movement is life..." This quote is made by Pitt's character, and exemplifies the intense nature of World War Z. Keep running, and you live. Coming to a stop and thinking that you're safe hiding somewhere, and well, you end up becoming a grotesque creature chasing after every healthy organism that makes a loud sound—until you get shot in the head by a Navy SEAL helping Pitt save the world. Carry on.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK... I saw the film two days ago, and thought it was pretty good. Definitely not the piece of crap that the teaser trailer made it out to be. (PUNK... PROPHET... BILLIONAIRE... STFU!) Jesse Eisenberg—of Zombieland fame—was amusing as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg...though it’s funny how little Eisenberg sounded like the real Internet billionaire [Zuckerberg made a guess appearance on last week’s episode of The Simpsons...and the dude has a pretty deep voice. Of course, The Social Network is based on events 7 years ago, but I doubt Zuckerberg sounds any different than he did when he was a hated(?) Harvard computer nerd in 2003].



Justin Timberlake did a notable job as Napster founder Sean Parker...though I wonder if Parker is anything close to acting like the somewhat douchey and cowardly partygoer that Timberlake portrayed him as. I don’t know much about British actor Andrew Garfield except that he's gonna play the next Peter Parker, but my hopes for 2012’s Spider-Man reboot have gone up a little after seeing his commendable performance as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.



The actress who plays Saverin’s girlfriend, Brenda Song, looked so friggin’ hot in the movie. Seeing as how Song is credited on IMDb only as "Christy" in The Social Network, was her character fictitious? Just kidding... Upon further research, I know that her full name is Christy Lee. It's Erica Albright, the girl played by Rooney Mara who is the reason why Zuckerberg created Facebook in the movie, that doesn't exist. Supposedly.



Before you ask... No, I didn’t post a status update about The Social Network on Facebook after I watched the movie. But I did tweet about it on my Twitter page (I’d provide a link...but I’ll probably end up deleting my Twitter account a few months from now...only to create a new profile on the same day. Just because). I wonder if the origins of MySpace and Friendster were just as dark as that of Facebook. Probably not. Otherwise, we would have already seen a Friendster movie...and Tom, the creator of MySpace, wouldn’t have been relegated to a cameo in last year’s unfunny flick Funny People. That is all.

LAST NIGHT, I had a crazy dream where a couple of friends and I were at a mall that was being overrun by zombies. Naturally, the majority of people inside the mall were devoured by the living dead, while other folks were either defending against the attackers (with ninja swords and firearms) or hiding inside various rooms or within air conditioning vents and a kitchen counter (think about that scene in the first Jurassic Park film where that teenage girl is hiding inside a cabinet while velociraptors lurk around her inside a kitchen).



The dream ended on a wacky note, with a helicopter coming to the rescue and airlifting us from the mall just as the zombies were about to overtake us. In case you’re wondering why this is considered wacky, it’s because the rescue team was led by none other than...Jennifer Aniston. Not Woody Harrelson a la last year's movie Zombieland, but Aniston. From what I remember, she wasn’t wearing an outfit like any of these ones below:



A bummer, I know.

NINJA ASSASSIN... I saw the film yesterday, and on a positive note, it lived up to its title. For those of you thinking that Ninja Assassin is a superfluous name (haha), the movie is actually about an assassin who kills ninjas. And that assassin, named Raizo (who's played by Korean pop star Rain), kicks ass! I actually saw the film, or at least the last 20 minutes of it, at work when it was test-screened earlier this year. Needless to say, I was so impressed by the climactic action sequence that I had to see the rest of the movie when it officially came out in theaters. Ninja Assassin is what those live-action Mortal Kombat films during the 90's should've been! (Other flicks that I paid to watch despite already seeing their endings during marketing screenings were 300, Superbad and Zombieland. We also screened Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen too...but the only shot I saw, since I had to remain outside the auditorium for much of the movie, was that end credit scene where The Office’s Rainn Wilson calls Shia LaBeouf ‘Professor Einstein’ in that astronomy class.) After Ninja Assassin ended, I overheard a fellow moviegoer who attended the same screening as me compare this film to 300. It’s an appropriate comparison...seeing as how Ninja Assassin, like the 2007 Zack Snyder flick, also had lots of cool action scenes, neat CGI effects and gallons of fake blood...



There are two plotholes that I noticed in the movie though: Who was the lady who called Raizo on the phone prior to him rescuing Mika (Naomie Harris) from an assassination attempt at her apartment? And who rescued Raizo from that river after he was injured following his betrayal of master Ozunu (Sho Kosugi) and the rest of his clan atop that rooftop? Anyways... Ninja Assassin is directed by James McTeigue, who also helmed 2005’s V for Vendetta, and was also the assistant director for Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and The Matrix trilogy. That is all.

LAST NIGHT, a couple of friends and I saw the horror/comedy flick Zombieland, and it was friggin’ awesome! Woody Harrelson kicks ass...and Emma Stone is hot. Jesse Eisenberg was hilarious, though let’s hope that he doesn’t get typecast in films whose titles end in ‘land’. (His previous film was Adventureland.) The best part of the movie was a scene inside a mansion—where a certain big-name actor/actress makes a totally gut-busting cameo! I’ll give you a hint about who this actor/actress is: This person somewhat regretted being in the Garfield live-action films a few years back. Then again... I think that was too big of a hint. Oh well. Now it’s time to NUT UP OR SHUT UP!

PS: Happy Birthday to me! I turn 30 today.