Miller's Movie Blogorama: Cape Cod Movie Reviews

We aim to please

Tim Miller — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:40:21 +0000

Within about an hour of my negative review of “2012” being posted on the Times Web site on Friday, I got an email from someone named Vlad.

He wasn’t happy with me.

He ended the note with: “I hope the world does end in 2012, and takes idiots like you with it.”

The return of ‘Zombie Girl’

Tim Miller — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:37:44 +0000

One of my favorite movies from last summer’s Woods Hole Film Festival was “Zombie Girl: The Movie,” a documentary about a 12-year-old girl from Austin, Texas, and her efforts to make a full-length zombie movie.

If you missed it, and you have satellite TV, you’ve got another chance Friday and Saturday nights when the Documentary Channel screens it as part of its Halloween weekend.

“Zombie Girl” is one of six horror-related documentaries to be shown on the channel between now and Sunday. I say horror-related because “Zombie Girl” isn’t so much scary (parents of adolescents might disagree) as it is funny and endearing.

It focuses on 12-year-old film fanatic Emily Hagins as she spends two years making her zombie epic, “Pathogen.” She’s all business (well, except for occasionally goofing around with her peers on the set) as she goes about writing, directing and editing the film. It’s inspiring to see her (and her patient, supportive mom) not only stick with it, but pull it off, despite the odds.

The “exclusive U.S. television premiere” of “Zombie Girl” is set for 8 tonight (Friday); the movie will be repeated at 9:05 p.m. Saturday. Also, you can now buy Emily’s “Pathogen” at www.documentarychannel.com/store.

Victory for the imagination

Tim Miller — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:06:23 +0000

Great news: “Paranormal Activity” kicked “Saw VI”’s butt at the box office.

According to an Associated Press report out today, “Paranormal Activity,” which reportedly was made for about $15,000, took the No. 1 spot at the box office with an estimated $22 million. The sixth “Saw” earned an estimated $14.8 million for No. 2. And “Paranormal Activity” was screened in less than two-thirds of the theaters as “Saw VI.”

I’ve seen both movies (”Saw VI” last night), and there’s really no comparison in terms of quality. “Paranormal Activity” is fresh and truly scary; it relies a lot on our imagination. “Saw VI” is simply another torture-porn retread, more depressing than scary.

The people have spoken, and they want quality. Listen up, Hollyweird.

Remembering Mayella

Tim Miller — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:25:29 +0000

You might not know the name Collin Wilcox, but there’s a good chance you know at least one character she played.

Wilcox played Mayella Violet Ewell, the young, poor white woman who falsely accuses black man Tom Robinson of rape in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It’s a small, but significant part, and Wilcox’s performance could be easily overlooked because of the many great performances in the 1962 film – Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning turn as Atticus Finch; young Mary Badham’s unforgettable Scout; even Robert Duvall’s heartbreaking appearance at the end as Boo Radley.

But Wilcox is extraordinary in the role as the emotionally tortured daughter of a bullying racist. Mayella is clearly lying on the witness stand, but she desperately turns defiant – the best defense being an offense – when defense attorney Atticus cross-examines her. You know her father abuses her – to what degree we’re not sure, but it’s probably to the extreme. She’s like a trapped animal lashing out, and she’s as pitiable as she is reprehensible.

Wilcox, who started as a successful young stage actress, was in her late 20s when she played Mayella, and though she appeared in many movies and TV series afterward (at times under the names Collin Wilcox-Horn and Collin Wilcox Paxton, having taken the last names of her two husbands), she never – to my knowledge, at least – had a screen role to match the “Mockingbird” part.

She died last week at 74, and reading the news made me let out a sigh of sadness. Sometimes we admire an artist for a large body of work; sometimes it’s just for one shining accomplishment. As for Wilcox, or Wilcox Paxton, I’ll always remember and respect her Mayella.

Fair warning

Tim Miller — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:22:05 +0000

I caught a TV ad for “Couples Retreat,” the new ensemble comedy headed by Vince Vaughn, and I realized that anybody who sees the ad and still goes to the movie deserves whatever they get.

There are about four or five quick clips in the ad, and not one is particularly funny. The first has Jean Reno (as a relationship guru) holding Vaughn’s face in his hands and Vaughn looking a bit dumbfounded by this. The last has someone jumping into some water.

These are the highlights of the film? We’re supposed to think this comedy is going to be bust-a-gut funny based on these short clips?

As it turns out, the ad is a pretty good indication of what you get in the theater – a comedy that isn’t very funny. (I gave it two stars.) Maybe that’s what they mean by truth in advertising.

Update your RSS blog feed!

Tim Miller — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:55:29 +0000

Dear Miller’s Movie Blogorama RSS subscribers:

We’re in the process of upgrading the software behind our blogs, in large part to add some new features and capabilities you’ll be experiencing soon. As part of this process, we’ve changed the location of our RSS feeds.

To receive continuous RSS updates when we update this blog, please update your feed readers to point to http://feeds.feedburner.com/cape-cod-movies. Or if updating the feed reader is cumbersome, simply unsubscribe from the old feed and then add the new feed as a new subscription.

In addition to the feed for this blog, we have many others available at http://www.capecodonline.com/rss.

- Cape Cod Times

The horror …

Tim Miller — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:29:22 +0000

“Paranormal Activity” is the best, scariest horror flick since “The Blair Witch Project.” I know some people thought “Blair Witch” was overrated, but if, like me, you thought it kept raising the ante on tension and chills before delivering a knockout punch of terror at the end, you absolutely have to check out this new film.

But you might have to travel a bit to see it. Paramount Pictures has – wisely, I think – come up with a release strategy intended to make the most of the film’s potential to build interest. Two weeks ago I caught a midnight showing of “Paranormal Activity” at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline – the only advance screening in the area until another was held this week in Providence. Other than media types like yours truly, moviegoers had to reserve their tickets online. Long before midnight, the line went all the way around the block.

And the audience was great. There were gasps, deranged laughs and, yes, screams. And they weren’t overreacting: “Paranormal Activity” is that good.

Paramount released it today in 44 cities – locally in Boston (two theaters), Randolph, Dedham and Danvers. I’m hoping it will come to the Cape, and I bet it will. But if you can’t wait, it will be worth the trip.

Either way, try to see it with a large audience. A packed house at midnight would be ideal.

As part of the marketing push, a site has been set up for moviegoers to demand that the movie be played in their area. Go to ParanormalMovie.com. You want it on the Cape? It’s up to you.

Back in school

Tim Miller — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:18:24 +0000

September was crazy – in a good way. In addition to seeing as many movies as I can, I’ve been teaching three film courses – Modern Cinema for Suffolk in Boston, and American Film and Introduction to Film for Cape Cod Community College.

I love teaching in general and teaching film in particular. It’s a blast. And one of my favorite things is exposing students to some of my favorite movies and movie stars. I’ve shown “Casablanca,” for instance, in two of the classes, and it’s been great to read students’ critiques about how they hadn’t seen it before (or had seen it before and hadn’t appreciated it) and that now it’s one of their favorite movies. That’s a thrill for me. And a lot of them have had the same reaction to Humphrey Bogart, my all-time favorite. His appeal clicked with a lot of them, and it’s so gratifying.

Speaking of the students, one of them, David Wordell in my American Film class, told me Thursday about a new subgenre – and I actually mentioned it (giving him credit, of course), in my review that ran in today’s paper on “Zombieland” (which I thought was pretty funny … uh, the movie, not my review). The subgenre? Zomedy.

Perfect. Probably the best zomedy I’ve seen yet is “Shaun of the Dead,” but “Zombieland” is right up there, too.

Doing my best Boris Karloff

Tim Miller — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:30:58 +0000

More evidence that I’m a knucklehead (as if more was needed):

I got off the ferry at 2 p.m. Saturday in Vineyard Haven for the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival (which ended the next day). I rushed over to the Vineyard Playhouse, a few blocks away, to catch an Italian film, Silvio Soldini’s “Days and Clouds,” which, of course, was scheduled to begin at 2.

When I got there, I was told it had just started. So I tried to sneak in as inconspicuously as possible.

I’ve never been to the Vineyard Playhouse before and didn’t know the setup. I walked through a black curtain, and before me was blackness. Just blackness. Nothing more. I didn’t know if I was in a closet, a small room, a large auditorium, or what.

I could hear the movie, though, so I stiffly lurched a few steps forward, and finally, in the corner of my eye (the left one, if you need to know) I saw the screen.

I was standing right next to the screen. Oh no!

But I still couldn’t see a thing, except what was on the screen. So I awkwardly edged a few mini-steps further forward, and, finally, I heard the friendly voice of Richard Paradise, director of the festival. “Tim, I thought that was you!” he said, or something like that.

I couldn’t see him, though. Not even a silhouette. Had I suddenly gone blind? No, because I could see the movie to the left of me.

I someone managed to shake Richard’s hand, and he suggested I just take a seat. I would have, but I couldn’t see where they were. Finally, Richard said he had to go anyway to introduce another film, so he left and I felt around, found his seat against a wall to the left of the screen, and sat down.

Whew. After a few minutes, my sight had adjusted, and I could actually see the seats and and people in them. I also saw someone else come in who seemed as disoriented as I had felt when I walked in. She somehow managed to find a seat in the third or fourth row after some effort.

It occurred to me, though, that just as I had seen this person strruggling in the dark, so the rest of the audience could have seen me as I made my ridiculous effort. Hopefully they didn’t notice me and weren’t distracted from the screen. But if they did, and were, they probably wondered, “Why is that guy walking like Frankenstein?”

Going long

Tim Miller — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:00:11 +0000

A funny thing happened at the paper today. Well, at least I thought it was funny.

I was in the night budget meeting, where we discuss the stories for the next day’s paper, and I was talking about a piece I had written for my Saturday arts-and-entertainment section front in which I complained that movies were running way too long.

The thing is, it was taking me forever to describe it, and I could see some of my colleagues’ eyes glazing over as I kept rambling on.

That’s right, I was taking too long talking about how movies are too long.

So when I was done, Bob Bradley, our night sports editor, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and whispered that I should consider writing a two-part piece on how I hate sequels.