MOVIE REVIEW: Fruitvale Station

The title of the film comes from the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Station in Oakland where on the early morning of New Years Day 2009, Oscar Grant, a 22 year old was shot and later died after allegedly resisting arrest after an altercation inside the train coming from San Francisco where he and his friends celebrated the New Year. Witnesses were able to document the incident by their cellphone cameras and other recording devices. The film focuses on the last hours before the shooting and it begins with one of the eyewitness video that was uploaded online.

Running in only an hour and 24 minutes and using a handheld camera most of the time, Ryan Coogler delivers the goods in his full length directorial debut that echoes another young African-African first film, John Singleton, who in 1991 directed the groundbreaking Oscar nominated Boyz n The Hood. The film  does not waste its time on unnecessary dramatics and goes straight to the point. Michael B. Jordan in a star making turn humanizes Oscar Grant. He is not a saint, has flaws and a bit thuggish often times. The good thing though is that the film showed through Jordan's breakthrough performance is that he tries to straighten up his life in a harsh world that he's in. Regardless of what kind of a person he was, Grant did not deserve to die that way. Melonie Diaz as Grant's girlfriend Sophina and Ariana Neal who portrays their daughter Tatiana gave sympathetic performances to counter Grant's perception of some people to him. Fruitvale Station showed Oscar Grant to be a loving family man and would do anything for them.

Academy Award Winner Octavia Spencer as Grant's mother Wanda proved that her Oscar winning turn in The Help wasn't a fluke. She is one mom who is fed up with all the petty things his son but the unconditional love shows.

Fruitvale Station is a hard movie to watch for we know what happens, but it is also a feel-good one for it shows that Oscar Grant was loved by his family and friends.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Conjuring

We go to the movies to be entertained and it's a bonus if it's from a true story, well made and you learn something. new. Based on a little known incident in Rhode Island during the early 70's, The Conjuring has all those qualities that I mentioned and it's quite a surprise that it comes from the guy who directed the now infamous first\ Saw movie: James Wan.

Set in the early seventies with some flashblacks, The Conjuring featured noted New England husband and wife demonologists who first gained prominence in the Amityville New York incident Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) who after a talk in some university were asked by Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor) to check out her house she and her family moved  in Rhode Island after some restless spirit continues to bother her family there. Together with Carolyn's husband Roger (Ron Livingston) and their five daughters, what they have encountered is something extraordinarily demonic.

Without the use of special effects, The Conjuring is a throwback to the classic horror movies that rely on sound, motion and the use of camera angles. It all worked well. The use of the gadgets in those era to capture an image of the spirits inside the house is well thought off and the soundtrack, production design and soundtrack does evoke that era. The bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church on exorcism cases which is a hassle for it takes so long before a priest can perform on a possessed being is also mentioned in the film. The ensemble cast also have excellent rapport with Oscar nominee Farmiga as the standout. Her Lorraine is restrained yet she shows dignified strength in moments she sees which we most fear. It is arguably an award worthy performance.

This is James Wan's best film so far and it's very gratifying for us avid moviegoers that from Saw to Insidious (which some people I know say that it's the scariest movie that they have ever seen) , he was able to evolve as a filmmaker and now The Conjuring, his masterpiece. He has found his niche in the horror genre and I hope that award giving bodies will notice his talent. It is one of 2013's best movies and it joins the ranks of The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror and The Sixth Sense as the greatest horror/suspense films released during the US summer season.

MOVIE REVIEW: Pacific Rim

When a channel opens underneath the Pacific Ocean that serves as a passageway for the Kaijus (strange beasts) from another dimension to wreck havoc on surrounding cities around it, mankind has no recourse but to create Jaegers (hunters) - robots almost the same size as the Kaijus to protect the planet from total apocalypse.

Pacific Rim is director Guillermo del Toro's love letter to those Japanese monsters movies and as he proved in his Oscar winning Pan's Labyrinth, he knows his mystical creatures. The film has the 50's-60's monster/alien invasion B-movie vibe while making very good use of  3D technology. This is the first film since Avatar that is worth the price of it.

Since the film mostly focuses on the battle between the two gigantic creatures, cities with skyscrapers are virtually destroyed. It is heartwarming for a movie fan like me to have two of the cities I love prominently featured in the film: San Francisco and Manila. Both were destroyed in the film but hey Manila in a science-fiction robot-monster movie? Only in our dreams before, but Guillermo del Toro fulfilled it. We have seen those scenes before in Michael Bay's Transformers films and most recently in The Man of Steel, but it is better executed in Pacific Rim and not as tedious to watch in the previous movies that I mentioned. Michael Bay can learn a thing or two on how to make the perfect summer blockbuster and he can start by watching this film. The lead role of Jaeger operator Raleigh Becket is played by British actor Charlie Hunnam (2002's  Nicholas Nickelby and TV's Queer as Folk) and he has great chemistry with the prominent names of the cast members such as Idris Elba, Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and Charlie Day (TV's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Ron Perlman (Del Toro's Hellboy) also has a prominent supporting role. 

Pacific Rim is so far the pleasant surprise in the summer movie season of 2013 dominated by the comic book franchises. A visual treat that has a story too!!