Paranormal Activity 3 is the third installation in a film franchise that up to now I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve previously reviewed Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 on pretty positive notes. Like The Blair Witch Project, which scared the crap out of my friends and I in the 90′s, the Paranormal Activity series has been pretty pioneering in its creation of thrills and chills.
The third installation, however, makes it clear that the premise has worn itself absolutely thin.
When the Sherlock series first debuted a couple of years ago on the BBC Maria and I almost missed it. Surprising because we’re both huge fans of both Sherlock Holmes and British detective dramas in general. This time around, for the second series of Sherlock, we were on the ball. And waiting.
The first 90-minute installment in the three-episode second series run is called ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ and like the mysteries from the last season it’s a take off on a familiar Sherlock story with a whole bunch of twists and turns.
Sherlock and Watson find themselves confronted with a number of mysteries from an outdoorsman killed by a backfiring car to a dead man in a trunk to a dominatrix trying to bring down the British monarchy. It’s a bit of an everything goes but, of course, like any good Sherlock story it all works itself out in the end and ties itself together in a neat little package.
Ah, the 2011 list. For a hack of a blogger like myself it’s my once-a-year bread and butter. This year instead of separating music, movies, and television I’ve decided to produce a comprehensive list and lump it all together. Hold onto your hats, and enjoy.
Favourite Films of 2011
I had a quick look around because I was curious and it seems like Tree of Life is topping everyone’s lists this year. We have it in the queue but haven’t got around to watching it yet. I’m curious now though and I wonder if it would change things if I were to watch it first.
The curious bit, however, about the two films that did make my list is that both feature the unmatched Paul Giamatti as the leading actor. This wasn’t intentional but when I looked at everything I’d watched this year and boiled it down to just a couple of my favourites… Do I have a particular bias towards anything that Paul Giamatti does? Perhaps. Is he undoubtedly the best actor working in Hollywood right now? Yes, sir.
Barney’s Version
Barney’s Version is a brilliant take on the novel by Canadian literary heavyweight Mordecai Richler. I remembering having to read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz in my O.A.C. (Grade 13) English class. I probably only understood about a third of what I read at the time but I can certainly appreciate a heavily nuanced and deeply moving plot a lot more now that I’m older. Barney’s Version is a movie about love, marriage, family, and memory. It’s wonderfully-acted (duh), well-written (duh), and unfolds itself in a fantastically pleasing fashion distilling all the very best parts of a well-developed Woody Allen movie. Complicated, comedic, and charming sums it up pretty well too.
Win Win
Win Win follows in the same genre of comedy as another of my all-time favourite movies Lars and the Real Girl. I’ll sum it up like this: Small town, quirky characters, social conundrums, and the kind of plot that sometimes seems like something you couldn’t make up if you tried. Like Lars, we’re treated to ninety minutes of some truly great and wholly surreal story-telling about people, a place, and a number of situations we’d never even thought about before. In this film, Giamatti plays and small-time lawyer and high-school wrestling coach as if he were born for the role.
I didn’t grow up on fairy tales — I grew up on Sesame Street — but my wife did and that’s the reason why she wanted us to watch ABC’s Once Upon a Time. I was skeptical at first, as one would understandably be when approaching a television show based on the premise of fairy tale characters living in real life. But after an episode, and then another, and then another, you suddenly realize that this show’s grown on you, and fast.
Indeed, after the first episode we were hooked.
When you combine two of your most favourite things in the world the result is not always what you thought it would be. For example, combining a delicious cheeseburger with an equally delicious piece of chocolate cake probably won’t end well. Chocolate cakeburger, anyone?
How about combining two of my most favourite television shows? Holmes Inspection, the Mike Holmes branded inspection and renovation show, and Ghost Hunters, the SyFy channel’s flagship paranormal investigation franchise. The result, well duh, is Paranormal Home Inspectors and I’m not sure it’s all that much better than a chocolate cake burger.
Paranormal Home Inspectors is new this fall on Discovery Channel Canada. It’s based, as far as I can tell, mainly in and around Toronto and feels very much like Holmes Inspection in terms of production value and quality. But, of course, this show involves ghosts.
Let me take you through a typical episode.
Win Win is a movie about a small-town lawyer who coaches a high school wrestling team. It’s about an old man in a retirement home, his grandson, and his wayward mother. It’s about relationships, how they begin and how they end, how they break down and evolve, and the consequences of our actions. It’s a creative and inventive story, full of the same kind of deep humour that packed a movie like Lars and the Real Girl or The Family Stone. It packs a similar moral punch, too.
It struck me, after unintentionally watching two very similar films, to do a themed review. I’m calling this Summer Films in Small Spaces; these are two excellent movies to watch this summer—popcorn thrillers—dealing with very small, cramped, and confined spaces.
