A relatively light week at the theaters in which I saw Chef (review to follow), Paul Walker‘s last completed project Brick Mansions (buhuh) and a half-way decent horror movie that’s failed to make much of an impression at the box office, The Quiet Ones. Aside from those you’ll find below, I also revistied The Amazing Spiderman at home to prepare for the screening this week and will briefly say that aside from the the smart casting of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, it really has very little to offer. The screwball plotline, Glasgow-grinnin’ Lizard and henious score alone are enough to retire this to the anals of the unnecessary (and thank God that Denis Leary‘s character is dead). Oh and I also quickly became obsessed with Comedy Central‘s Review, a brilliant comedy series in which Andrew Daly plays a man that reviews not food, books or movies but life experiences. Definitely check it out.

I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

A deliciously devious tale of revenge, Kim Jee-woon‘s I Saw the Devil shows South Korea for the bold cinescape it truly is. Kaleidoscopically epic, hopelessly violent and ruthlessly vengeful to a fault, this two-and-a-half revenge saga tells the tale of a special ops agent, Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee) who seeks retribution against the twisted serial killer (Mik-sik Choi of Oldboy) who raped and decapitated his pregnant wife. As he becomes a bona fide hunter of the criminally lecherous, Kim loses himself in a battle with his own soul. The blood drips bright stripes of red, complimenting the engrossing, challenging and yet playful story from Hoon-jung Park. With each new South Korean film I encounter, I get more and more addicted. Next up: The Man from Nowhere, New World andThe Good, The Bad and the Weird.

A-

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (2014)

There’s not much to say about this newest installment/first spin-off of the Paranormal Activity camp aside from mentioning the fact that if you’ve liked/put up with the earlier installments, this is just more of the same. It fleshes out some of the mythology but in no concrete or truly satisfying way. It’s like the ending of a lesser Lost episode that just leaves you with more questions than answers. There are moments where it seemed like director Christopher Landon dared to go in a whole new direction (the Chronicle-esque subplot was easily the film’s best moments) but eventually turned into your standard, if not subpar, PA movie.

C-

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007)

Somber and brave, much like the film’s subject, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly takes the perspective of Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered a massive stroke that resulted in a rare case of “locked-in syndrome”. If the name “locked in syndrome” sounds kinda shitty, you don’t know the half of it. Bauby didn’t lost any mental acuity but became so deeply paralyzed that he became unable to speak or move – that is, all but his left eye. With only the power of blinking, Bauby learns to communicate through long-winded sessions with a caring therapist. Julian Schnabel’s film charters the many lives he touched and how he went on to write a touching memoir, all through opening and closing his one bloodshot eye. More similar in tone and style to The Sessions than My Left Foot (and glisteningly ripe for a parody title of My Left Eye) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a deeply soulful and philosophical venture that explores what it means to be human in wonderfully simplistic terms yet it never quite offers the caliber of showmanship, in front of or behind the camera, to muster up the tears – or emotional gut punching – you might expect it to elicit.

B

BIG BAD WOLVES (2014)

Quentin Tarantino named this Israeli thriller/black comedy the best film of 2013, earning it a place on many a movie buff’s radar. Perhaps the expectation of greatness and Tarantino’s stamp of approval led to my ultimate disappointment with the film but I’d like to think that it has more to do with quality issues than my going into it with preconceived notions. The story is certainly one that would catch Tarantino’s eye: a teacher framed for raping and murdering little girls is kidnapped and tortured by a victim’s father and a roguish detective. But the film runs aground a slew of narrative issues and is saddled with mostly poor performances from the Israeli crew, most notably from Rotem Keinan who plays “is he or isn’t he?” rapist/murderer Dror. Watching a man’s fingers gets smashed to bits by a hammer or his sternal charred by a blow torch should be torture to watch but Keinan always looks like a man who’s stubbed his toe. It just didn’t work for me. There’s enough intrigue and tension to keep affairs interesting throughout but it’s certainly not a film that I would run out to recommend to anyone unless they’re dying of curiosity.