THE WOMEN

Cast: Trevor Matthews, Robert Englund, Rachel Skarsten; Director: Jon Knautz; Producers: Neil Bregman, Trevor Matthews, Patrick White; Screenwriter: John Ainslie; Music: Ryan Shore; Editor: Matthew Brulotte; Genre: Horror/ Suspense; Cinematography: Joshua Allen; Distributor: Epic Pictures Group; Location: USA; Running Time: 85 min.;Technical Assessment: 3 Moral Assessment: 2CINEMA Rating: For mature viewers 18 and aboveJack Brooks (Trevor Matthews) has had anger management issues ever since he witnessed his whole family shredded to pieces and eaten by a monster. To this day, he loses his temper over the smallest petty issue. He works as a plumber and takes up night classes upon the insistence of Eve, his whinny nagging girlfriend. After one of their classes, Professor Crowley (Robert Englund) requests him to check the water pump and pipes in his house. While attempting to fix the old house’s plumbing, Jack accidentally unleashes the evil buried in the backyard. Crowley is drawn to the black heart which immediately forces its way inside him. The professor is transformed into a voracious pus-filled octopus-like monster during their chemistry class and eats most of the students who also become flesh-eating monsters. Jack then realizes that he can no longer run from his anger and returns to save the students and kill the monsters. The movie is fairly decent and technically acceptable. Although it takes almost half the movie before something happens, but when the excitement comes, it is able to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. There is a good storyline behind the blood and gore with a well-paced editing and satisfactory camerawork. The acting is so-so except for Englund. Over-all, the movie delivers quite a respectable scare and suspense. Sometimes, our past leaves deep scars in our being that we end up becoming lost, broken and unproductive. In as much as our past shapes us, it should not control us. Our past should offer lessons for growth and improvement and whatever mistakes we might have committed then should be help us become better persons now. Our pain should push us to creatively work around our issues and our scars should be a reminder not of what we failed to do but what we can do better the next time. Only when Jack was able to divert his guilt and pain of losing his family into fighting evil did he learn to control his anger. The movie has too much gore and blood for young audiences. Parents are cautioned against allowing their children to watch the movie unsupervised.
Reviewed by CBCP CINEMA at 1:21 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Women
Cast: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith; Director: Diane English; Producers: Diane English, Mick Jagger, Bill Johnson, Victoria Pearman; Screenwriters: Diane English, Clare Boothe Luce; Music: Mark Isham; Editor: Tia Nolan; Genre: Comedy/ Drama; Cinematography: Anastas N. Michos; Distributor: Picturehouse Entertainment; Location: Massachusetts, USA; Running Time: 114 min.;Technical Assessment: 3 Moral Assessment: 2.5CINEMA Rating: For mature viewers 18 and aboveFriends Mary Haines (Meg Ryan), Sylvie Fowler (Annette Benning), Edie Cohen (Debra Messing) and Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith) are there for one another. Mary is a mother of one and seems in a perfect marriage. Sylvie, single, is a high profile woman’s magazine editor. Edie I a mother of three girls who won’t stop getting pregnant until she gets a son. Alex is an avowed, incorrigible lesbian. Two things they have in common: long-standing friendship and a passion for shopping, preferably at Saks Fifth Avenue. When Sylvie learns from a manicurist Tanya (Debi Mazar) at Saks that Mary’s husband Stephen is the lover of the store’s perfume sales girl Crystal Allen (Eva Mendes), the trio tries to find a way to tell Mary ever-so-gently. But Mary also discovers it from the same gossipy manicurist, and decides for divorce. The four friends conspire to break the affair, but despite Stephen’s attempt to reconcile with Mary, she cannot be moved.The dramedy The Women is inspired by the Clare Booth Luce play of the same title, and like the latter’s 1939 film adaptation by George Cukor, it also does not show males on the screen. There are two males, however—two husbands and a boss—but they are only heard on the phone with the women. It has a strong all-star cast including Candice Bergen (as Mary’s mother Catherine), Chloris Leachman (as Maggie, the Haines’ housekeeper), Carrie Fisher (as a gossip columnist), and Bette Midler (as Hollywood agent Leah Miller), which gives the movie a “chick flick” flavor. The script is also adapted from both the play and the 1939 screeenplay, using a story that is almost the same as the original although with a contemporary backdrop relying on the power combination of fashion and publishing. Gimmicky additions are the use of split screen, an entire fashion show, and a prolonged childbirth scene.We can’t help thinking that The Women is but a small part of the trend to highlight female-bonding in cybermedia. Circulating lately via internet and email are Power Point presentations stressing how the world becomes a better place to live in when women –sisters, friends, mothers and daughters, grandmothers—are there for each other. In fact, Jada Pinkett’s line on the glories of lesbianism is a rather blunt statement for the advantages of female bonding—albeit sexually perversive. The movie’s main theme, marital infidelity, is very much adult but its comedic approach may lighten the impact of adultery in the viewer’s mind. The Women has been compared to the recent movie version of Sex in the City, featuring another quartet of female friends, but The Women covers more ground in terms of women’s issues such as the inevitable betrayal between close friends, the desire to have sons, the impact of divorce on children, society’s apparent tolerance of extra-marital affairs, the reasons behind a husband’s infidelity, etc. Because of its adult themes, CINEMA rates The Women as a movie for adults 18 and above.