Saw VI

The last installment of the second Saw trilogy provides the usual glorified blood and gore, but this time (compared to its most recent two predecessors) actually graces us with a well developed and intriguing story. The events that occur here in Saw 6 finally embrace the original flow and creativity of the story that five and four seem to have temporarily derailed. Fans of the Saw series will undoubtedly welcome back this gruesome film that gives the franchise a much needed boost in overall story development and excitement.
The story begins from the end of Saw 5. Agent Strahm is dead, and agent Hoffman (the actual new Jigsaw and only one who knows of Strahm’s death) has successfully framed Strahm as the new Jigsaw. The grand scheme of Jon Kramer (the original Jigsaw) is finally coming to its ultimate conclusion. His wife Jill is working with Hoffman to lay the plan out and execute Kramer’s final game. We finally see that the black box Jill received at the end of Saw 5 from Kramer is filled with information on his next game’s targets, along with one other mysterious package. The main target is that of a health insurance agent, William, who has not only denied Kramer, but also countless other people health coverage.
William is thrown into a section of an abandoned zoo where he will face four separate challenges in order to save his own life as well as his family’s life. While all this is taken place, Hoffman is dealing with Agent Erickson and the surprising return of Agent Perez (from previous films). Erickson and Perez are hot on the trail of the new Jigsaw and Hoffman realizes that he will soon have to something drastic to protect his identity.
The layout of the screenplay follows the basic rules of a typical script. All the elements are present and happen at the right times. The story starts off immediately with two victims attached to unique traps set up by Hoffman (the present Jigsaw killer). This establishment is important to the story because it marks the return of Jigsaw. The inciting incident happens when the contents of the black box Jill was given to her by her husband are revealed. The contents show the targets of the next game set up by the original Jigsaw.
The start of the game happens a third of the way into the movie after everyone involved is captured and set up to their traps. This is the first plot point. It is revealed that William is the main target of the operations and there are numerous grueling and violent games he will have to play in order to save his family.
The second plot point is when we find out that one of the targets the box contained was Hoffman, the loyal servant of Jigsaw. His time has come to participate unwillingly in Jigsaw’s games and see if he has the will to live. His game, along with the advancement of William in his challenges brings in the climax of the movie. William has made it all the way through his challenges only to find out that his life will be decided by a husbandless wife of whom was widowed because William refused their insurance coverage. While this is happening Hoffman is set in to his own trap by Jill. Will William be spared? Will Hoffman survive his game and continue his reign as Jigsaw?

Written by: Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Tucker Max, author of I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell, made a lot of promises pertaining to his book being made into a film. He mentioned a possible Oscar nomination for his script, a huge success in the box office, and a firm anti-Hollywood film to please the masses. What was produced was a complete failure. I haven’t read the book, and despite the far from entertaining movie, still hope to get my hands on it after hearing a lot of good things. Seeing as the book is a bestseller, its possible the movie had the potential to bring in a reasonably large revenue. After seeing I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell it is easy to see why it only hit 1.4 million dollars in the box office so far and will not do much better.
The adapted film is based loosely off “The Austin Road Trip” chapter of the book which follows Tucker Max (Matt Czuchry), and his friends Drew (Jesse Bradford) and Dan (Geoff Stults) as they venture to a highly acclaimed strip club to celebrate Dan’s final days as a bachelor. Tucker talks Dan into lying to his fiancée by telling her they will go to a strip club near home when really they will travel three and a half hours to their true destination. Seeing as Dan has important obligations early the following day, the decision of Tucker to take Dan so far from home will undoubtedly lead to many problems.
Tucker’s narcissistic attributes quickly prove to be a hassle to Drew and Dan as he constantly lies to them and proves to be a very disloyal friend. At a time Dan needs Tucker’s friendship the most, Tucker is nowhere to be found. Dan lands himself in jail after an alcohol induced mishap while Tucker fulfills a long term goal and fantasy of hooking up with a circus stripper dwarf. The next morning Drew and Tucker go to the police station and find their bloodied, disgruntled friend. While eating at a diner Tucker reveals the true purpose of their trip; to shack up with the dwarf. Enraged to learn that Tucker made him lie to his fiancée because of his selfishness, Dan abandons his so-called friend and takes a bus home. Alas, Tucker is uninvited from Dan’s wedding and must find a way to set aside his narcissism and mend his friendship, which he does so in a typical Tucker Max way.
We are established in to the story after a graphic opening scene. Police officers on call raid a house that was suspected to have animals being tortured inside (because of awkward yells and moans coming from inside). What they find is a Tucker Max going at it with a deaf girl. The next day in class at college, Tucker tells his friend the story and insists that he finds the humor in the situation. Tucker’s friend is getting married and Tucker has decided that it is up to him to plan the bachelor party. This is the inciting incident.
The first plot point happens when Dan and Tucker finally convince Dan’s fiancée that the bachelor party is completely harmless. The harmlessness is lost when Tucker forces Dan to go to a far away strip club that his fiancée won’t know about. Now Dan is caught in a lie.
Deep into the night, and many drinks later, Dan is called on stage in the strip club so everyone can celebrate his bachelor’s night with him. Since he was so drunk, he accidently hits a stripper and falls off stage. Bouncers beat him up and kick him out, leaving him the streets. Dan finds a dumpster and pees on it right in front of a cop car. This is the second plot point, and now Dan is in jail with no way to get a hold of his fiancée or his friends.
Tucker finds Dan the next in the station and they travel back home. While at a diner, Dan learns that the whole reason Tucker wanted to go to a strip club that was three hours away was because he wanted to hook up with the stripper midget there. This enrages Dan and he opts to kick Tucker out of the wedding.
Tucker, who does not feel like what he did to Dan was a bad thing, must find a way to get his friendship back. He gives a heartfelt but slightly vulgar toast at Dan’s wedding and earns back his friendship. A ridiculously climaxed story for a ridiculously written screenplay...

Written by: Tucker Max and Nils Parker

The Fourth Kind

The Fourth Kind is a chilling tale about actual events that occurred in Nome, Alaska about several cases of alien abductions. The film uses actual video and audio recordings of “non-fictional” events to help boast its legitimacy. A lot of controversial discussions came at the release of this movie about its credibility and how true all the events actually are. Attempts to disprove some of these events through logic and facts were made. The Mayor of Nome, Alaska, Denise Michels, in several interviews said that The Fourth Kind is a science fiction movie and a lot of things that happened in the movie are not true and never happened in Nome. Just like the decision to believe in God or not, the power to believe in aliens is up to the individual. There are no proven facts that either exists, and only faith and the will to believe makes them real to a person. Will you believe; what you are told, what you see in a movie, or countless stories of witnessed UFO sightings and abductions? That is all up to your faith in something, but The Fourth Kind will insist that you believe this story.
Writer and director Olatunde Osunsanmi, tells the story of mysterious disappearances in Nome, Alaska and the journey of a psychologist, Abigal Tyler (Milla Jovovich), to solve them. Tyler’s husband has just been murdered and she takes it upon herself to continue the studies he has been conducting in Nome (which eventually relate to the disappearances). Her subjects are the sleep-depraved of the small Alaskan town. All of the patients report waking up several times in the night to see an owl outside their window watching them. Dr. Tyler decides to perform hypnosis to one of her patients to try and see if they can find out something he doesn’t remember from a past night. After put into a deep trance, the patient relives the moment he woke up and saw the owl. Only this time, the owl is gone and someone is entering his house through the front door. The intruders are the aliens. After this hypnosis treatment and another one performed on a similar case subject, Dr. Tyler comes to the conclusion that these patients were abducted by aliens and didn’t know it. The hypnosis therapy made the patients relive what really happened to them.
The first patient was traumatically affected by the realization of his “fourth kind” encounter, and without being able to mental withstand what he has learned he kills his family and commits suicide. Here I should add that the first encounter is a spotting of a UFO, the second encounter is when the aliens leave a physical trace, the third encounter is when you come in contact with the physical being, and finally, the fourth kind (described as the worse) is an alien abduction. The second patient receives a second hypnosis session, but this time the aliens use his body as a communication relay to talk to Dr. Tyler and her associates. They basically tell her to stop her studies or terrible things will happen to her. The patient is left paralyzed after his body was twisted and contorted in unnatural ways. Dr. Tyler continues her research since she is so determined to figure out what the aliens are doing and why people are being abducted. Terrible things do happen.
The inciting incident happens when Dr. Tyler is put in a state of hypnosis so she can try and recall the person who killed her husband. When she awakes she tells her doctor that she will continue her husbands researches and must figure out what he is after. This tells us that her husband was doing important research and was on the brink of a breakthrough.
Plot point one occurs when the first patient who is hypnotized sees the aliens come in to his house and attack him. He only remembered this while in the hypnotized state and didn’t know it had happened. Later in Tyler’s researches she encounters the aliens herself (but only in a hypnotized state) and they tell her to stop her studies or else terrible things will happen. Plot point two comes when something terrible does happen. The aliens kidnap her daughter and later tell Tyler that she will never be returned.
Dr. Tyler decides to be hypnotized one more time in order to communicate with the aliens again. This is the climax of the script. They take over her body and speak to her colleagues in the room. The alien that speaks through her insists that he is God and then continues to speak in an untranslated alien/foreign language. Tyler is left paralyzed and to this day her daughter has not been returned or found.

Written by: Olatunde Osunsanmi and Terry Robbins

Four married couples, of whom all but one have threatening marriages, decide to embark on a fun-filled adventure to the Eden resort to get away from their daily lives and attempt to rekindle the diminished fires in their marriages. Shortly after arriving to their vacation destination they are pained to learn that the resort package they signed up for is actually a rigorous “couples skill-building” retreat. Saddened to the fact that there will be no free time to jet ski, get drunk, or enjoy most of the fun things the resort has to offer, they decide to stick to the program rather than return home.
Headed by Marcel (Jean Reno), a peace-loving and unusual psychiatrist, the couples retreat program is designed to use the beautiful Eden resort accommodations and surroundings to amplify Marcel’s unique and often odd lessons to help the couples find their inner strength and beauty. Most of the lessons and couple therapy sessions tend to be more disastrous than helpful to their marriages. The men become so torn apart from their cravings to let loose, party, jet ski, and do other fun activities that they become distant from their enthusiasm to partake in the couples retreat with 100 percent effort. At the same time the women also become distant to the retreat and the faith in their relationships that they start to question their involvement in their marriages. Eventually they make it to the other side of the resort, which is a forbidden place to their program, where the all night partying and dancing occurs, and begin to see each other in a different light and value the respect for each other that was always present but hidden somewhere in their marriage.
The writing for Couples Retreat was just not very good and completely unsatisfying. However, most of the basic elements are present for it is a fairly well set up screenplay, just poorly written. I think the character changes happened too late in the story and since I lost interest in the film very easily, I didn’t care much for the changes that went on.
The four couples and their relationship statuses are quickly and effectively set up. We learn that one couple is on the verge of divorce, one is unmarried, the other is having intimacy problems, and the fourth one seems to be doing just fine. The inciting incident happens when the couple with intimacy problems, confesses to the other three couples that their marriage might soon end. This comes to a surprise to everyone else for they seemed like the most stable of the four. The only thing that can save their marriage, they feel, is a vacation to the “Eden Prime” resorts. If all four couples attend the resort, they will get a special deal on a package that will be much more affordable to them. After much struggle, they convince everyone to go.
Plot point one happens when they find out that the package they signed up for involves no free time or fun activities. It is all based around couples relationship building and therapy. This comes as very tragic news to the group because they planned on drinking and doing fun things the whole time.
Plot point two happens when the girlfriend of the unmarried man runs away to the other side of the resort that has the all night partying and dancing. The group decides to break their resort package rules and escape to the other side to find her.
The climax finally rises in the end when they find the girl and all the couples perform a transformation when they find the inner strength of their relationships. The screenplay waited too long to come to a resolution and quickly ended after that. The character changes were bleak and predictable.
Written By: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, and Dana Fox

Zombieland

The foundation of “Zombieland”, along with the rest of the movie, is told through the perspective of Columbus (Eisenberg) through thoughtful narration. He tells us that a once peaceful society is now overrun by flesh eating cannibals with one goal, to tear you apart with their teeth and eat your flesh down to the bone. Columbus, whose name is masked the entire film after he was given this nickname by Tallahassee (Harrelson), believes, but hopes he is not, the only survivor in Zombieland. While on his way to Columbus to see if his parents are alive, he meets Tallahassee. Tallahassee is a tough and brutal zombie, hating individual with a very humorous and rambunctious personality. They decide to team up to help each other survive on the way to their destinations.
Zombieland is terrifically written and has a very nicely set up screenplay. We are established through effectively written dialogue telling us that the world has is overrun by viscous, flesh eating zombies. Only one thing left for the survivors of mankind is to survive and not be eaten. The inciting incident happens right from the beginning of the film. It is the explanation that zombies rule the world and there are potential survivors fighting for their lives. We are immediately thrown into the action.
Plot point one occurs when Columbus meets Tallahassee. At first they stand each other down at gunpoint, but quickly proceed to lower their guard and join forces. The two strong survivors embark on a mission to get their separate destinations. They later realize that where they are going is not somewhere they want to be, but rather they want to stick together.
While on a side quest to find a “Twinkie” for Tallahassee they encounter two other female survivors, Wichita and Little Rock. The first time they meet the girls con them into stealing their ride and weapons and leave them behind to defend themselves with nothing. Later on down the road they meet the girls once more, only to be fooled yet again. This time however, they stick together. The girls are on a mission to go to “Pacific Playland” in California where it is rumored there are no zombies. Plot point two occurs when Wichita tells Columbus that the place he is trying to get to, to find his parents, is a ghost town. This is the fact that causes Columbus and Tallahassee to travel to California with the girls. Their relationship builds throughout the film and they become very close. A love interest begins to form between Columbus and Wichita.
The climax of the film comes when they finally reach “Pacific Playland” after settling into a celebrity’s for a few days, the girls leave the guys one final time to travel on their own. Columbus, who has a very keen liking to Wichita, decides to go after her. He knows she will need to be saved and convinces Tallahassee to help him. Once the two men arrive at “Pacific Playland” they find it overrun by hordes of zombies trying to kill the two girls who are trapped on a ride. Columbus and Tallahassee kill all the zombies and save the girls to conclude the film. Columbus and Wichita kiss for the first time, and the four drive out of the amusement park to continue their journey for survival.

Written by: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

Pandorum

The movie starts off by establishing the concept that the Earth is no longer a suitable home for humanity. Nearly 200 years past present time, basic necessities like food, water, and fueling products have been completely diminished by inhabitants that are included in a population of twenty-four billion. A seemingly lone fleet corporal, Bower (Ben Foster) awakes out of deep freeze with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. This is the first side effect of “Pandorum”. After realizing the power is shut down and the only exit door is jammed he waits for the only other deeply frozen companion to awaken. Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) wakes an hour later with the same side effects of Pandorum; memory loss that will return with time. Bower and Payton conclude that they are on a spacecraft 500 billion miles from Earth containing 160 thousand frozen soldiers and civilians. The spacecraft they are on is a sleeper ship whose inhabitants will repopulate a livable new planet.
After the film is nicely established, the first plot point comes when Bower first encounters the primal-like creatures on the ship. After escaping these creatures for the first time, he knows that his adventure to restore power to the ship is going to be a difficult one. Also included in the first plot point is when Bower encounters another survivor on the ship.
The second plot point occurs when Bower and two other survivors learn about what is going on. They find out that one of the crew members affected by Pandorum released numerous inhabitants and left them on their own to survive and evolve, into the creatures, for hundreds of years. Shortly after learning their history, Bower completes his mission of restoring power to the ship.
The climax of the film comes when we find out that Payton is not who he says he really his. Bower and Payton engage in their final conflict, where only one can survive. Is Humanity saved? Or does the evil crew member affected by Pandorum rise to the top?

Written By: Travis Milloy

Sorority Row

A group of sisters of the Theta Pi sorority at one of the largest party schools decide it is a good idea to pull a prank on one of the sister’s cheating boyfriend. They give Garrett fake roofies to slip in his girlfriend’s drink and have his way with her. The prank evolves when she fakes a series of convulsions and an apparent death. The sisters and sleazy boyfriend take Megan to a run down mining area where they will pretend to dump her body. Garrett then proceeds to ruin the prank by driving a tire iron through her chest to “deflate her lungs” so she won’t float in the nearby lake. The sisters vow to throw Megan down a mine shaft along with the tire iron and never speak of the whole situation. The plot thickens when all the sisters receive a text message from Megan’s phone showing a picture of the bloody tire iron. Thus the ridiculousness and typical question of “who is killing us all one by one?” ensues.
The script of Sorority Row, although shallow and filled with wak dialogue, holds to the basics of screenwriting. All the elements are present to contribute to a traditionally set up screenplay. It first establishes that the events to occur happen to a group of sorority sisters from one of the biggest party houses on campus. The inticing incident occurs when Garrett drives the tire iron through Megan’s chest. On the basis of the genre of the movie, we know that in killing Megan, someone will take vengeance and kill all the people who were involved.
The first plot point happens when the girls and Garrett receive a text message from someone they don’t know that shows a picture of the bloody tire iron. After receiving this message, they come to the conclusion that someone is just playing a horrible joke on them.
The second plot point occurs when they find the first dead person. The first girl to be taken out was alone and just seemed to disappear to all the other girls. But during a party, the sisters find a dead body and start to believe that someone is actually out to kill them. This is also when they realize that they are at a point of no return. There is no running or hiding from their secret anymore.
The climax rises when they finally come face to face with the killer and try and defend themselves. Most of the sisters who hold the secret are dead, and the ones left must fight for their lives. At the conclusion of the movie, the sisters reveal the true identity of the killer (and what a surprise it is… not), and kill him. The only two surviving sisters think that everything is finally at end, or is it?