the haunting in connecticut and ghost town all while zack and miri make a porno...

good afternoon over here on the east coast. we'll start with the best ratings on these and work down. obviously ghost town and zack and miri were rentals as i did not get a chance to see them in the theater. i also still have nick and nora's infinite playlist to watch and seven pounds...who knows when there'll be time? plus i plan to go see monsters vs aliens sometime this week as well.

ghost town - 8/10 snaps - hilarious! you have to like the sarcastic smart ass british humor for this one but both sean and i really enjoyed it...ricky gervais was great. i'm not the biggest fan of tea leoni either but she put in a good performance for this as well. spoilers ahead [hell spoilers in all the reviews so :P in advance]...premise of the film is that ricky gervais who is a dentist goes in for a colonoscopy and ends up dying on the table for several minutes which allows him to see ghosts. per the norm of films such as these the ghosts have unfinished business which leaves them lingering about. turns out the unfinished business is actually that of the living and not the dead and it obviously ends up having a gigantic effect on the dentist's life. the film makes for a cute, funny, heartwarming tale. several laugh out loud moments. well worth the rental/download!

zack and miri make a porno - 7/10 snaps - don't go see this with your parents...one of those fantastic kevin smith films. plus you get to see jason mewes [jay from the other kevin smith films] with short hair and naked. huzzahs all around! i surely hope those tattoos are real but why wouldn't they be? plot is about high school buddies zack and miri not being able to pay their bills so they decide to try making a porno when they meet some gay porn stars at their high school reunion. turns out zack and miri have actually been in love this entire time but neither of them realized it so the movie is more about the story of the two of them figuring this out with the porno making as a great background. if you're thinking about not renting/watching it, i have two words for you: star whores...

the haunting in connecticut - 5.5/10 snaps - i decided to go see this yesterday all by my little lonesome. i don't do well in scary movies even when i go with someone else but sean thought the film would be 'dumb' so he didn't want to go. interestingly enough, this was the most random set of previews i have seen in a long time. started out normal with drag me to hell [scary gypsy curse movie with alison lohman from matchstick men], then there was a crank 2 preview which regardless of how completely idiotic the premise is promises to be a fantastic action film, following crank 2 was an extended x-men origins: wolverine preview which i thoroughly appreciated for all the gambit that was added into this particular preview [i still have yet to reach a decision on what a great gambit taylor kitsch'll make until i hear him speak...sorry hun but the cajun accent is at least 60% of the role], so the final preview ended up being hannah montana [wtf you say?!? i know i said the same thing]...why would someone think that the hannah montana movie would be an appropriate preview before the haunting in connecticut?...

now on to discussion of the actual film...i'm going to have to research the true story to see how much the movie stuck to it as it had random moments where you're trying to figure out why the hell they put the father's alcoholism in the movie since it was only a fifteen minute scene that had absolutely nothing to do with the remainder of the film, almost a lack of editing unless it meant a lot to the actual family. so per the film, not sure about the real story, oldest son [matt] has cancer and the family decides to rent a house closer to the hospital where he's receiving treatment. turns out said house used to be a mortuary and that the mortician [aickman] there practiced 'necromancy' on hundreds of corpses and would replace their bodies in coffins with sandbags so that people were unaware of his grave robbing. so matt is plagued by these visions/possessions by the spirit of a boy in the house [jonah] who was apparently the mortician's apprentice. turns out jonah is a medium back in his time and aickman is using him to make money via having all these seances. aickman tries to amplify the seances that his mortuary is now famous for by using these corpses. so matt is supposedly more apt to see all of this as he is dying from cancer...enter a reverend who is also dying from cancer that can see the spirits as well. reverend ends up removing jonah's bones from the house thinking it will help the family when it turns out jonah was the only thing keeping the other spirits from killing the family [surprise, surprise]. so matt finally figures out where all the bodies are hidden in the walls of the house and lights the bitch on fire. according to the end of the film, matt was found to be cured of cancer after that evening and the house has since been rebuilt/renovated. none of the tenants since have complained of anything out of the ordinary. again i'm still going to have to check into the real thing. the acting performances were all worthwhile. i was pleasantly surprised to see that the reverend was played by elias koteas [casey jones from tnmt yo] who does act in a good bit of films nowadays but they aren't movies i've been to see. if you enjoy horror movies it's definitely worth a rental.

enjoy the silence.