Review: Isolation

When I was younger, I didn’t watch many horror movies. I was a skittish kid, easily frightened and I stayed away from them. Later, I felt they were an inferior genre, but as my exposure to them increased, I realized that I liked a good tension-builder. I was looking for such a fix last week when I opened up the Netflix Instant Watch app on my phone to pick out a movie for the night. I thumbed through the ‘Horror’ offerings, passing up some interesting-looking Asian films and some horrible-looking American slashers. I settled on a quiet little film called Isolation, which featured a picture of a lonely farmhouse centered above a close-up of frightened eyes, set in gray, blood-streaked flesh. Ok, I thought, let’s try this out.

The film is set on an Irish dairy farm. The farmer, Dan, is being compensated by a genetics company to allow them to test their new bovine growth hormones on his herd. A complication with one of the pregnant cows soon turns mysterious and deadly. Before I ‘spoil’ this movie, I’ll give a quick comparison to clue you in on where we’re going here. I’ve described the film to friends as Alien on a dairy farm, with a sprinkling of Critters (at least what I remember seeing between my fingers when I was younger) and as many tired, overused creature-horror moments as they could shove in. Here endeth the non-spoiler portion of the review:

The pace of the movie is very slow and deliberate at first, something I like in my thrillers. Writer/director Dan O'Brien eases you into the movie with beautifully eerie cinematography and unexpected perspectives. You feel you’re going to enjoy a nice little indie film about isolation on a dairy farm. Very shortly, the bovine pregnancy has complications. As the vet, Orla is sticking her hand up the cow’s nether-regions to ‘feel around’ for the fetus, she cries in pain and wrenches her hand from the cow’s steaming anus. She rips off her arm-length surgical glove to reveal…what’s this? A laceration? From a cow fetus?

A side story of a young couple (Jamie and Mary) in a caravan on the road is revealed. They’re running from something. Hmmm… intrigue. Orla leaves for the night, leaving Dan to tend the herd on his own. He goes to check on Bessie in the middle of the night to find that she’s bleeding and the calf is ready to come out. He runs out to the caravan to get Jamie to assist in shoving a pully system up the cow’s arse to help ‘push’ (haha) the birthing process along. “This is a big one” Dan says as he grunts and clicks back the lever one more notch. At one point, Bessie gets agitated (would you blame her?) and begins to buck and spin. With the contraption attached to her rear, it looks as though she’s giving birth to a child’s swingset. And not liking it.

The baby is big and seems rather docile, even for a cow. He (or she) lies there, rasping out each laborious breath, staring straight ahead in a look of pain and desolation only a cow can achieve. Dan discovers that instead of the normal mouthful of grass munching molars, the baby has a gnarly set of haggard fangs arranged like pixie-sticks in her sad maw. Orla doesn’t like the look of it and wants to put the calf and the mother out of their shared post-partum misery. She grabs her rod and piston gun and tries to pull the trigger but chickens out at the last minute, missing the poor calf’s brain and instead spreading a cloud of brain-blood all over her person. The calf cries in pain. Oh, the poor calf. After much ado, it ends up dead and Bessie gets drilled after she strands herself trying to jump over the pen to save her doomed calf. Yes, the movie still had me in its clutches at this point.

Fast-forward to the creature feature: The rub to this particular yarn is that the growth hormone fed to the cows is a little too effective. John, the scheming, Machiavellian scientist explains that the hormones were meant to produce bigger cows that reproduce faster. Instead, they’ve created a set of inside-out fetal cows (that’s right, their skeletons are on the outside) that have developed inside the calf while it was inside its own mother. Holy crap! The wriggling spine-worms spill out of their embryonic sacs like angry mutated maggots. Of course, one of the filthy buggers escapes their quick death-by-squishing and provides the next hour of ‘action’.

From slithering up into the bed to climbing through the rafters, this little dude does it all. They even try to one-up the Alien franchise by using not a chest-burst, but a total thru-and-thru, revealing a large hole burrowed through our poor vet-lady (no, you don't get to see that happen). It also turns out that the creature’s quick growth allows it to gestate inside humans and steal the best bits of our DNA. Sadly, the promise of a skeleton-cow/human hybrid is not realized in this film. Instead, the worm just gets bigger and bigger until a cow skull is snapping at people from the darkness. I will say that the effects, especially with the little spine-worms, are pretty incredible. Making a wriggling line of bones look alive couldn't have been easy.

The movie seemed to reach it's low when the creature is seen skittering into a six-foot-deep slurry of what I assume is rainwater and cow manure. Dan attempts to ‘fish’ for the creature on his Farmerall, and, in a moment of supreme horror-movie stupidity, only succeeds in flooding the engine and stranding himself in the opaque goop. I guess Dan thought his tractor was made to drive underwater. John, the mad scientist, wants to maintain ownership of his creation while doing as much collateral as possible with Orla's cow-killing gun. PSHT – What was that? That was Jamie getting put down like Bessie and her creature-incubating calf.

To say this is a good movie might be a stretch. I keep swishing it around in my brain like an expensive wine: am I missing something major here? If I judged it on the first thirty or forty minutes, I would have been singing Billy O'Brien's praises. It was great to look at, the tension was slowly built, and there was potential in the concept. The attempt to make dairy cows frightening is admirable (I actually ended up feeling really badly for Bessie and her calf) and I can't help but give him points for even making this movie, but reliance upon too many genre cliches left my brain splattered on the floor like poor ol Bessie’s. Perhaps if I had been more of an open-minded kid and experienced more horror through the years, I would appreciate this piece more. If I ever go back to it, I might eat my words and praise the film. It wouldn't be my first time. I will say that if you and your friends want to look at a beautifully shot film and have a few laughs (MST3K style), then by all means, see this film. If you're into creature features and a horror connoisseur, check it out and let me know what you think. I'd like to hear other's opinions. For some kinder reviews, check out Bloody Disgusting and Video Updates.

My New Partner in the Bedroom

In my months of absence, I’ve had many opportunities to write blog entries, but haven’t jumped on them. I’ve decided to remedy that with what I hope will be a spate of mini-reviews and blogposts to entice new readers. The first of these will be a review of an iPhone/iPod dock that I recently purchased.

After work, I was killing time at the local Best Buy and thought I’d look for an alarm clock dock since I had eschewed my trusty old-school alarm clock for the alarm function on my iPhone. While browsing, a kind employee came over to assist me. He asked if I wanted better sound quality and I said sure, why not? We waltzed over to the sound accessories and I noticed the pricetags immediately jumped up at least two-fold. I was really looking for something on a budget, something to get me by that would charge my phone and give my speaker a boost when I play podcasts and music in bed, but I had time, so I let him show me around.

The very first item he plugged my iPhone into was a Klipsch iGroove SXT,a sleek, simply designed powerhouse of a speaker dock. There are only three buttons (volume up and down and a power button) and your iDevice of choice plugs in snugly between two large speakers. The fullness of audio output floored me right off the bat and he invited me to crank up the sound. I obliged and to my surprise, the audio quality was not compromised by raising the volume. No crackling to be heard, no loss of either bass or

treble. In fact, the unit sports both woofer and tweeters, something especially nice for the price range. The $149 pricetag was a bit over my range, but I almost dropped the cash right then and there. Nonetheless, we tried the other units available, including a Bose unit that was twice the price. Of course, the Bose delievered great sound, but for half the price, the Klipsch really held my attention. I instead decided to refuse an impulse buy and do a little research at home online.

My research returned many good reviews of the product, backing up my initial impression. I did some price checking and found a factory refurbished model for $79, almost half-price. I decided to take a chance and ordered the speakers. I impatiently awaited the rather speedy delivery time, checking the tracking number every day until the unit arrived. I hungrily tore through the brown paper wrapping and carefully sliced open the plain white refurb packaging. Inside, I found a manual, a set of dock adapters, a remote control, and an AC adapter. I plugged it in and set my iPhone in the cradle. My small apartment was soon filled with thick, luxurious sound (I played some Cake to test it out, in case you’re curious). The unit now stays on my nightstand except for when I move it to the kitchen to keep me company while I’m cooking or doing dishes.

I will make a quick mention of the remote, which is a mixture of good and bad. I haven’t been able to find the IR receiver, so sometimes I don’t get a clear shot from across the room, but generally the remote responds nicely. The skip and back buttons only work with the iPod feature on my iPhone (not Pandora or other apps), but I use the remote almost exclusively for volume adjustment between songs/tracks, so this isn’t a huge drawback for me. And while I’m on the subject of volume adjustment, I will say that I wish the buttons on-unit had a bit more tactile feedback. I like to know for sure that a button has been pressed, but all too often the only way I can tell if I’ve made a change is to press the button a few times (or hold it down) and see if the volume changes. The volume meter on my iPhone is hidden while it's plugged in, so there's no visual feedback for the volume adjustment either. But as with the remote, this is small gripe and probably stems more from my OCD tendencies than an actual design flaw.

The iGroove charges my phone as quickly as the standard USB/AC adapter and happily, when I receive a text or phone call, the signaling ringtone plays through the speakers, so I don’t have to be within earshot of the built-in iPhone speaker to be notified of incoming communications. This is also useful when my phone is charging in the other room and someone calls me.

Additional ports in the back allow for aux input via a standard 3.5mm stereo plug (so they could be used for computer speakers) and an s-video output, presumably to output video content to a television. I have yet to try this feature out, but will add that to this review should I ever feel the need to try it. For now, I'm happy using it as a charging dock and powerful set of external speakers.

If you’ve been looking for an elegant solution to charging and amplifying an iDevice, go with the Klipsch iGroove and thank me later.

beardyman

Being an avid music fan for as far back as I can remember, I've searched for artists that were different and pushed the envelope. It's been getting harder to find artists who impress me; and in my opinion this is partly due to an innovation drain, and that I've experience so much music it takes quite a bit to perk up my ears.

I discovered Beardyman while investigate Tim Exile. Both terrific artists, but what strikes me about Beardyman is his ability to create all instalments and textures using his voice. These two artists share the ability to create, record, and mix music live. By using a Kaos pad both artists record everything live, mix it, layer it and create a wall of sound all on the fly. Beardyman's ability to use his mouth to create all instruments, record them into the Kaos pad and completely improvise shows a kid who uses technology as tool and not a crutch. This is true artistry. Beardyman and others to follow will help move music and performance into a new direction when so many artists follow a formula. I understand the elements, like beat boxing, used by Beardyman are not new, but the way they are put together is fresh and interesting.

Beardyman is about 28 years old and has been interested in sound effects since the 80's from watching Michael Winslow in Police Academy. Originally interested in comedy he found he had a talent for beat boxing. He is known to incorporate comedy into his acts and some shows he's performed are more comedy routines than beat boxing. He is originally from London and as far as I know hasn't done many, if any shows in the U.S. However, you can catch him on YouTube, click on the first Beardyman in this blog and enjoy.

Review: The Lookout

The Lookout was a pleasant surprise for me. I knew it was some sort of heist movie, but beyond that, I went in refreshingly ignorant. What I was met with was a drama with genuine emotion, interesting characters, and originality.

Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is struggling to find his place after a horrific car accident leaves him with a head injury. He relies on a notebook to remember the mundane details of daily life and has labels on everything in his apartment to keep things straight. His carefully outlined life is forced into upheaval when he meets some people who intend to take advantage of him.

The dark tones that writer/director Scott Frank works with echo film noir, but keep at a distance from this more formalistic style. While he provides plenty of stark shadows and empty environs to emphasize the isolation Pratt feels because of his condition, he doesn't dive fully into those familiar memes. The characters overall are not caricatures, as they sometimes tend to be in noir, and some, as is the case with Luvlee (Isla Fisher), have motivations that remain a little unclear even as the final credits roll.

That said, I like to think there was some symbolism going on that I didn't quite get. I noticed the neon cross hanging over Pratt's shoulder in one scene, reflected in his window in another. Also, there's the stoic, dark-spectacled enforcer Bone. He says little in the film and bears more resemblance to a force of nature than a man. He reminded me a little of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, an agent of evil with no feeling. I'm not sure, however, what that means in the context of this movie. Pratt is dealing with his demons throughout the film, so maybe this literal dark character is the personification of that. I won't go further in the interest of avoiding spoilers, but if anyone has any theories, I'm all ears.

Any review of this movie would not be complete without mentioning Gordon-Levitt's nuanced and restrained performance. From the subtle accent, to the intermittent stares and the slight limp, he had me believing Pratt was a real person with a real head injury and more importantly, I sympathized with him. Jeff Daniels' depiction of his roommate and friend, Lewis, complemented Pratt perfectly, cultivating a friendly chemistry that's almost palpable. It's hard not to like Daniels in this role and it's a real treat to see these two great actors plying their trade together on the silver screen.

In conclusion, I'll just say that I wouldn't mind watching this one again at least once. There is plenty of beautiful photography to look at, the story would hold my interest, and the performances are truly amazing. Check it out soon.