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Miranda Grey has a good life working with the criminally insane at a mental institution. She is the head therapist and her husband Douglas is in charge of the institution. One night she leaves late in the middle of a downpour and has to take an alternate route home. Half way there she gets in an accident where she sees a burning woman. Three days later Miranda wakes up to find that she is now in the institution because she went home and killed her husband; Miranda insists on her innocence and proceeds to try to find out what really happened while being used by a vengeful spirit and locked in with her former patients.

Gothika is a movie I avoided when I was in film school. I just was not really into Halle Berry after Monster’s Ball, I’m still not the biggest Berry fan. However, I finally broke down and netflixed it when I saw that Robert Downey Jr. was in it, and it was one of his first big films after he was out of prison.

This is an interesting movie. I’d never heard of director Mathiue Kassovitz before but if Gothika is any indication he has a stunningly visual eye; Gothika is an incredibly well shot movie that uses a monotone color palette in a way that somehow makes it pop off the screen. His use of shadows, color, light and movement was the first thing that drew me into the film. Shockingly it was the story and performances that kept me there.

I will be very forward in saying that Gothika is not as original as it thinks it is; while the story is pretty similar to most European/Asian horror, it still has it’s clichéd and predictable moments – the camera movements that clue you into the coming jump, the sound ques, etc. But it does execute them pretty dang well. I actually jumped at one of the jump moments – something that I don’t normally do. But it is predictable, maybe just because I watch so many movies but I was able to figure out a few of the upcoming plot points. It was still pretty entertaining though.

I also found that I liked Halle Berry & Penelope Cruz; both are actresses that I don’t normally enjoy because I think they don’t really do much to add to their characters (other than add sex appeal) but I think Gothika gave them a chance to play different characters and step outside of the pretty girl box. Of course I loved Robert Downey Jr. as well, but we all know that basically goes without saying.

What keeps Gothika from being a really good movie is the end of the film, not the last act but literally about the last 3 minutes of the film. It feels like a studio tack on ending, something that was added because the studio was afraid of Halle Berry’s character having to face up with the dark things that had been done through her when she was possessed. Instead, they literally jump from the denouement where some character threads and questions should be answered to a year later as Penelope Cruz & Halle Berry walk down a street discussing how they are in better mental places now. Everything that you want to see about Miranda, her patients, the doctors and the aftermath of the whole incident is just gone – brushed under an invisible rug and we are in a totally different locale. It feels like a cheat and makes the last hour plus you’ve spent in the world feel like a waste of your time.

If the ending were better, Gothika would be a pretty dang good movie.
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Writer: Sebastian Gutierrez
Miranda grey: Halle Berry
Pete Graham: Robert Downey Jr.
Douglas Grey: Charles S. Dutton
Sheriff Ryan: John Carroll Lynch
Phil Parsons: Bernard Hill
Chloe: Penelope Cruz

Chloe: You are not a Doctor in here. And even if you the tell the truth... no one will listen. You know why? Because you're crazy. And the more you try to prove them wrong, the crazier you'll appear. You are invisible now. Can you feel it?

Black Rock is the town that civilization forgot, they like to keep to themselves which is why it’s such a shock when the steamliner stops in their town for the first time in four years and John J. Macreedy gets off intent to spend 24 hours in the town. Macreedy soon realizes that something is lurking beneath the hostility of the towns residents, something that has to do with the man he is looking for, a Japenese farmer named Komoko.

Bad Day at Black Rock is a phenomenal movie, there is no other way to put it. The film itself walks the line between film noir and western and perfectly encapsulates the sense of anger and defeat that still existed shortly after WWII, and the stress of the McCarthy era on the time the movie was made. Surprisingly it deals with one very central theme, racism or how we let our prejudices generalize what we think about someone. This was a very heavy topic for 1955, the era right before the civil rights movement and when people were being questioned about “red” activity.

I have to say I am a sucker for the metaphor that a train or train tracks provide. Typically these symbolically present a sense of destiny, a fixed course that the character or characters cannot move away from, and Bad Day at Black Rock plays off this beautifully. Not only is Macreedy delievered into town via train but one of the pivotal conversations between the villains of the film takes place as they lounge on the tracks. These characters are locked into a pattern, a course that they cannot escape no matter what they try and it will be carried out to its very end.

One cannot help but notice the sheer greatness of Spencer Tracy in this film. He is a one-armed war hero trying to stay alive and uncover a mystery and he is awe-inspiring as John J. Macreedy. He is the kind of character that actors look back at now when they need to play the hard-as-nails good guy, the guy who can make you break out into a sweat before he even threatens to throw a punch.

Bad Day at Black Rock needs to be watched by anyone who has a love for classic cinema or wants to be entertained by a story instead of a concept. This film is a tense under ninety minute experience and you will not regret it.

Director: John Sturges
Writer: Millard Kaufman
John J. Macreedy: Spencer Tracy
Reno Smith: Robert Ryan
Liz Wirth: Anne Francis
Sheriff Horm: Dean Jagger
Doc: Walter Brennan
Pete Wirth: John Ericson
Coley Trimble: Ernest Borgnine
Hector David: Lee Marvin
Sam: Walter Sande

Doc: Four years ago something terrible happened here. We did nothing about it, nothing. The whole town fell into a sort of settled melancholy and all the people in it closed their eyes, and held their tongues, and... failed the test with a whimper. And now something terrible's going to happen again -- and in a way we're lucky, because we've been given a second chance.

I will fully admit that I loved Tron as a child but I didn’t remember a thing about it. I knew Jeff Bridges somehow got sucked into a video game and had to fight his way out and that was about all my knowledge other than it thrilled me beyond belief as a kid. As I sat at Comic-Con this year holding my Flynn’s Arcade token and seeing test footage from Tron Legacy I realized I should try again and watch Tron to remember why I loved it.

I love it again.

Tron is a frickin’ fantastic movie that I think was way ahead of its time both in the way it presented computer technology and in how the computer world was carried out on screen. The CGI may be way behind what we can do now, but how Steven Lisberger used the CGI makes the film not dated but instead it’s artistic and quite extraordinary looking. Flynn, Tron and the other programs look like a beautiful mixture of computer, neon and color-washed black & white photographs. It’s hard to explain but a visual treat.

Jeff Bridges is also a joy to watch. I am sorry to say that I don’t see enough of his films. If I had been a teen in the 80’s I probably would have had a crush on him after seeing Tron, but good looks aside he is a great actor that makes Flynn’s intelligence and rule-breaking spirit endearing and adventurous.

I will probably be adding Tron to my DVD collection before long, but I might wait until closer to the release of Tron Legacy to see what fun doo-dads they decide to add to the DVD.

Director: Steven Lisberger
Writer: Steven Lisberger & Bonnie MacBird
Kevin Flynn: Jeff Bridges
Alan/Tron: Bruce Boxleitner
Ed Dillinger: David Warner
Lora/Yori: Cindy Morgan

Ram: You really think the users are still there?
Tron: They better be. I don't wanna bust out of here and find nothing but a lot of cold circuits waiting for me.