Tag: CGI


Killer Mermaid

August 15th, 2014 — 6:07am

***Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 10.27.42 PM

Killer Mermaid-sp – As readers of this blog well know, we have not previously reviewed movies of the  monster genre. However, when circumstances provided us with a preview DVD of such a film, we decided to go for it. This is a Serbian movie in English. It is filmed in Montenegro, Serbia with an experienced director,  Milari Todorovic (Apocalypse of the Dead) and starring a veteran actor, Franco Nero (Django) and a group of young actors who have already established themselves in this genre: Kristina Klebe (Rob Zombie’s Halloween), Natalie Burn (The Expendables 3) and Dragon Micanovic (Rocknrolla). The setting could not be more intriguing as a beautiful seaside town with a mysterious island off shore with an old stone prison, where during World War II the Nazis were said to have done some nasty business. Two attractive young women come to visit their old college friend who is at this seaside town with his beautiful fiancee. They meet another young man and decide to explore this island named “Marmula.” The story line will grab your attention and keep your anxiety level high. The script is well constructed and qualities of the characters play out in what is soon to be developed. There is vicious murder, blood and guts, suspense, scary music, surprises, twists and turns, hypnotic enchantment and of course a killer mermaid. She is a combination of outstanding natural beauty and is also about as horrific as you will want to see, all due to a combination of CGI, some very skillful make up and state of the art mask construction. It is well done and deserves to join the growing number of well-received horror films. It will stand out because as best we understand, it is one of the first to use the deep sea and fantasies of living mermaids. As the movie concludes we see a clear set up for a sequel. The film and future follow-ups will stand a very good chance of high success since it has the backing of Epic Pictures which has an outstanding track record of frightening people around the world with some great horror flicks. (2014)

Comment » | 3 Stars, Horror

Life of Pi

November 10th, 2012 — 4:15pm

****

 Life of Pi-sp

If you have by some chance read the book, we did not, you probably will be very curious how the story would be told in the film . If you are a big Ang Lee fan(Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film), Hulk (2003), and Brokeback Mountain (2005), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director,  you most likely will want to see his latest work. If you love 3D movies where everything seems so real and comes right at the audience, this would be on your list to see. Finally if you  are a real big animal lover, you will be drawn to this movie. Since we really don’t fit in any of these categories we were quite neutral when  we found ourselves at the sneak preview showing of this movie. The Life of Pi  was like nothing we have ever seen. The story is quite unique which revolves around one young man from India who as you can see from the movie poster is  shipwrecked in the middle of an ocean with a ferocious tiger. The 3D effects are as realistic as we have ever seen . The CGI ( Computer Generated Imagery) is clearly state of the art or perhaps years ahead itself. In a Q & A after we saw the movie, the  audience actually questioned the  guest at our screening, Elizabeth Gabler,  Fox 2000 President, whether trained animals were being used for most of the complex dramatic scenes because every hair on their bodies was totally realistic as was the fast moving action. The beautiful and powerful  depiction of nature was beyond description and has to be seen to be appreciated. There were essentially 5 people in the film although it revolved around one person Pi Patel . However, there were 14,000 people hired to work on the movie who worked an estimated 600,000 hours in a film that had a budget of around 100 million dollars. This alone should pique your curiosity to see this movie. Pi Patel was played by Suraj Sharma a young man who had no intention of being an actor but showed up with his brother at one of numerous castings held all over the world and was chosen. He had to endure wind, water and much movie trickery to help Director Ang Lee achieve his effects. If there was one shortcoming of the film, it was that we did not respond strongly to  to the intended emotional undercurrent and the twists at the end of the movie as did some of our fellow movie goers. That did not make us sorry in any way that we had spent 127 minutes with this unusual film.(2012)

 

Comment » | 4 Stars, Drama, Family / Kids

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