The Fourth Kind…Better After A Fifth
November 18th, 2009 4:51 pm by Jonathan
Last night, I had a chance to watch The Fourth Kind. Growing up in the Hudson Valley (a hotbed for UFO activity); moving to New Hampshire and constantly visiting Exeter and driving the same route Betty and Barney Hill were on when they had their first experience; to moving to Arizona and reading up on their fair share of extraterrestrial phenomenon, it's safe to say I have a great deal of interest in UFOs, aliens, and other related incidents, including my own experiences.
The owl is a lie.
The Fourth Kind starts off as a really good movie. There are people coming to the realization that they've had experiences that undeniably smack of alien abduction. The owl they keep remembering outside of their bedroom windows is a safety device their minds conjure to keep them from having to deal with the unfathomable experiences that they had, which were so traumatic, that when they go under hypnosis, they are shaken into hysterics by the realization of what truly happened to them, driving some to be unable to cope, and committing suicide. This is all understandable, as the human mind can only take so much revelation, especially when it's personal.
The psychiatrist in this movie, Dr. Abigail (Jovovich), soon realizes she may also have had strange experiences, as evidenced on a recording on her dictation device. She calls in an expert in the field of ancient civilizations and alien contact (a very specific area of expertise), and finds out that the voice that is not her screaming is speaking Sumerian. This (and we are asked to make this leap, as viewers) tries very blatantly to not-so-subtly hint that these aliens have been in contact with our species since the dawn of civilization, and that we may be their experiment.
This theory is nothing new, and certainly the movie should have balanced that out more with the experiences people were having in this small Alaskan town. However, the movie then scatters too much in too short of a period of time to resolve anything or see it through in any way.
This is the problem I have with this movie, and almost any movie like it. To expose certain topics in a movie, the world in which the movie exists presupposes that the subject matter has either never been thought of in the first place, or that so few know about it that the idea is almost preposterous. Some examples include:
Paranormal: People refuse to believe that there's anything wrong happening and that there is nothing that can't be explained away or destroyed
Transformers: That, even in a world where the Transformers franchise doesn't exist, that no one has thought of vehicles that could change into robots, even as toys. (This also presumes that the country of Japan does not exist, by logical extension.)
The upcoming remake of The Third Man: This presupposes that anyone could reinvent gold and turn it into something that isn't going to be an utter insult to movie history.
Anyway, to get back to the film, Dr. Abigail's patients are dropping after hypnotherapy causes them to go over the edge, either because they can't cope with what's happened to them, or because the aliens have set up certain psychological triggers so that the bigger picture is never discovered.
The small town sheriff in this movie thinks that hypnotherapy is utter bunk and wants to arrest Dr. Abigail on charges that what occurred after putting her patients under makes her an accessory. Her house is put under 24 hour police surveillance, and this is where the movie goes all to hell, in my opinion.
During the first night of the police watching the house, one of the officers sees “something” happening. Something entering the house or hovering above the house. He is so aware of this, mind you, that he calls for backup (while the video surveillance in the police car records the event and is horribly distorted, there's no denying that something caused the officer to radio for help). The police arrive, only to find that Dr. Abigail's daughter is missing. The sheriff thinks the doctor hid her own daughter. The doctor says she saw a light and then her daughter was gone. No one bothers to review the tape or ask the officer who reported the incident what he saw. Ever. Not even once for the rest of the whole movie.
After this incident, Dr. Abigail decides to be hypnotized as a means of contacting or understanding the aliens and where her daughter might be. She has a friend and colleague put her under, while the expert in ancient civilizations holds a camera to record the event. Everything goes haywire. The recording is distorted, there is the doctor's voice and some entity speaking ominously in Sumerian. Then the recording ends.
What we are left with is Dr. Abigail, talking to someone on a show about her experiences, her colleague who put her under who isn't saying anything, and the expert in ancient civilization being nowhere to be found.
Maybe that's what the film intended – to have everything be as much an unknown to the audience as it is for the people who experienced the abductions. However, I doubt this movie will become a series, and it was (unfortunately) portrayed in a fashion no better than a dramatization on the Discovery Channel or old episodes of “In Search Of...” The Fourth Kind leaves no resolution whatsoever, and doesn't even bother to explore any of the mysteries it created. It would have been great as a late night movie in the 1960s or even 1970s, but right now, its portrayal just left me cold and unable to relate to a subject I know is much different (or rather, the film exaggerated the subject matter in the wrong areas) in my world, and in the experiences of others.
Feed: The Movie, Or, An Argument For Vegetarianism And Celibacy
August 28th, 2009 1:00 pm by Jonathan
While I was in the middle of writing two articles for Less Than Credulous, my writing and thoughts were interrupted by casual movie watching with a piece that had my jaw on the floor, and my eyes unable to move from the screen no matter how much common sense would have wanted otherwise. If you are brave or need to satiate your morbidly (this adjective will be used in conjunction with another word later on in this article) curious side, then continue. If you are squeamish and disturbed by human nature, then I ask that you read something informative, enlightening, and more down to Earth (Shane's articles are very good for this).
The movie is entitled “Feed,” directed by Brett Leonard (the writer of “The Lawnmower Man” movie script), and tells a tale of on-line gambling, serial murders, and relationships – all done through the filter of what some might label sexual deviance. Before the film even started (as my fiancée and myself had just tucked in for a night of dinner and a movie), a disclaimer popped up on the screen to state that while the story and characters may be fictional, the events are based on stories about acts between consenting adults (this is when I tried to hurry up with what I was eating because I had a funny feeling that the wild ride was about to begin).
I expected dark humor. I was wrong. In fact, this movie deviates a lot from the formula of serial murder thrillers in that there really isn't much seen of the protocol and investigation followed by authorities; there is no sense of suspense or urgency; but (and this really struck me) there was a lot of camera time spent with the killer and his (unwitting) victim.
“Feed” is mostly about relationships of control. It explores the consent given between people in dominant and submissive roles, and even (much to my surprise) touched on how the person “in control” must invest in, and take care of, the object of his/her affection (there was a brief correlation with a scene of a police raid on a couple who were performing an at similar to a startling article from a few years ago).
Now let's get to the meat and potatoes of this movie. Detective Philip Jackson is part of an Australian police force, and his job is to hunt down sexual predators and illegal (mostly on-line) sexual activity. While searching for a new crime to be investigated, he finds the site geared toward “feeders” and “gainers.” For those of you new to these terms, or for those that never let a drunken friend use their computer, The former (feeders) take great delight in doing just what their name implies: shoving food in people's mouths and watching them eat. The latter (gainers) are the recipients of such action, and relish in eating and gaining weight.
Det. Phil finds that the physical location of these streaming videos, and, breaking all the rules like the maverick he is, takes a flight to Toledo, Ohio to stop this nefarious act. One wonders at this point what everyday actions are now considered pornographic.
Thus far, I'm being very tame in my description. I've left out the details of the German cannibalism scene (that is not a knackwurst in the pan). I've not gone into detail about our morbidly obese (see, I told you) 600 lb. webcam babe, dressed in lingerie, and getting very excited at the mountains of cheeseburgers getting crammed into her mouth; nor am I going into great detail about her screams of ecstasy when the host of the show (our killer) hoists her off of the bed and she realizes she's reached her new weight goal (kind of the opposite of any weight goal you may have set for yourself at the gym, or the goal you “let slip” after New Year's). If you want the visuals, watch the movie for yourself, because I've already been on this wonderful adventure, and some things just don't translate to words. Just keep in mind, you cannot unsee things.
To get back to the story, Phil tracks down our killer, and finds that his “sex” site (on a personal note, sex would have been the least offensive thing in this movie – which is probably why they didn't include it) is taking bets; not on how much camera babe Dierdre will be super-sized, but on when she'll die. Phil breaks into the killer's home (formerly his mother's – yes, they went the route of using the convention of “mother issues” to explain this maniac's motives and sexual depravity), to discover bags containing the parts of former victims.
While this is occurring, our lipo-killer (Michael) is preparing a final feast for his objet d'amour. It is a gruel of weight-gain powder and (what is heavily implied to be) the rendered fat of one of his former victims, all lovingly force-fed through a funnel and into Dierdre.
At this point, the detective bursts in, and tries to expose Michael for what he really is. Dierdre, however, is confused, and doesn't understand why this Australian stranger with a gun would be trying to disrupt what was (and has been) a very consensual and sensual experience between two adults. Of course, the end goal being a slow and heavy homicide was tacked on so that there could be conflict and resolution (which in itself took a very unexpected twist). I will not spoil the ending for you (unlike what I've probably done to your next meal), in order to get you to watch this fairly underrated movie.
All said and done, I wanted to say this was a good movie. It broke away from a lot of the usual formulas, and (again) apart from the whole “killing” thing, it provoked the questions of what is obscene, and what rights, if any, anyone has to judge what consenting people do in private or on-line.
The lines repeated throughout this movie are “You are what you eat,” and “Consumption is evolution.” You will think twice after seeing this film about what you do and eat, and how it is perceived by yourself and society. While I do not have a rating system in play for my own movie reviews, the best I can do is recommend this movie on an empty stomach.