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Reviews
30 Days of Night (2007)
Descent Vampire Movie
The film is set in Barrow, Alaska where for 30 days during winter the town is in perpetual night. The movie begins with everyone who doesn't have to be there leaving because 30 days without sunlight is somehow impossible to endure. Having grown up in Buffalo, I can assure you this is not true. So the movie sets up the town, depleted and cut off, vs. a troop of vampires, somewhat artificially but there you go. Initially the vampires run through the town killing everything in the their path. There's an overhead shot of this that is completely original and spectacular. I suspect that the director took it from a panel in the graphic novel but to film this shot is way more difficult than to create a static drawing.
Anyway, from there on in it's the vampires vs. the plucky survivors and plucky they are. There's a bit of "I wouldn't do that if I were you" going on but that's just unavoidable in a horror film and it's kept to a minimum. In general the survivors act intelligently and most importantly believably as they try and last the 30 days until sunup. That goes a long way to keeping the movie afloat.
The end offers a bit of twist although the final scene it is similar to Blade II.
I would say that if you like this sort of movie you will not leave the theater feeling disappointed or cheated.
Idiocracy (2006)
A side note on the genesis of the story
Note although not credited, Judge obviously got at least a little inspiration from sci-fi short story The Marching Morons by Cyril Kornbluth see the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
I can't remember if they ever used the story in the Twilight Zone TV series but it does seem a likely candidate. It would be nice to see an anthology type of sci-fi movie made from some of the great 50's Sci-Fi stories. Say 3-4 short films of 20-40 minutes each rather than stretching one story into a 100 min. film. The Twilight Zone movie is an example but they just used old episodes and it became more famous for the death of Vic Morrow than the actual film.
Barfly (1987)
An interesting movie, well worth seeking out
Those of you who are fans of Bukowski's work will recognize various snippets of his short stories which, strung together, comprise this film. Bukowski himself appears as one of the drunks in the bar, "The Golden Horn". He's the tall one with the gray beard. Bukowski was the poet laureate of the down and out in LA and many had great fondness for his work, including Sean Penn. In some ways is was Mickey Rourke's finest work with the possible exception of Body Heat. Bukowski himself was a much nastier drunk and capable of great cruelty. This is aspect of his personality is never brought to light in the movie and Rourke's portrayal of him as a wistful dreamer, while not historically accurate, is certainly much easier to take. Bukowski wrote about the whole experience in the novel Hollywood, which you might consider reading after you see this movie. All in all, it's not a bad way to spend 100 minutes.