Movie Review: Orphan

Recently I found out one of my favorite Stephen King novels, “Cell,” is going to be made into a movie starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. They once starred together in another Stephen King adaptation of “1408.” I also saw a young actress playing the part of “Alice” and wondered who she was. The actress is Isabelle Fuhrman, and I had not seen her in anything, except for “The Hunger Games” as “Clove” although I fell asleep right after it started. But I noticed on her profile on IMDB that she was in a movie called (SURPRISE) “Orphan” and it looked good enough that I thought I’d give it a watch.

Cute.

You should know by now I’m all about spoilers, so expect them.

First of all, this movie reminded me quickly of “The Good Son” with Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood. Except “Orphan” was good.

Seriously, I was 13 when I went to the theater to see “The Good Son” and when Macaulay said to Elijah, “Don’t fuck with me.” I wanted to walk out. The only way Macaulay could have ever been scary is if he promised to straighten himself out and continue his career by first revitalizing the “Home Alone” franchise. No fucking thanks. There’s a reason Elijah still has a great career and Macaulay doesn’t, and drugs ain’t it. Well okay, drugs is one of the bigger reasons.

BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, you little shit? Elijah should have climbed back up that rope and beat the fuck out of him. On to something better.

She’s a pretty good little psychopath.

“Orphan” is about a rich married couple who has two children. They would have had three, but the last one died before it was born. So now they want to adopt. They go to the orphanage to pick out a new child and CCH Pounder helps them to find one. CCH, for those of you who don’t know, is an amazing actress who was in one of my all time favorite movies, “Demon Knight.”

At one point while the main characters were walking around their very nice, most likely very expensive house, my wife asked me why it is these movies always show people living in the posh estates and not in a trailer or something. I told her I appreciated seeing rich people having bad shit happen to them. It makes me feel like we’re not that different, they and I.

The parents discover little Esther painting some really good stuff. They talk to her, decide they like her and take her home. And then, naturally, shit hits the fan. She starts destroying the family from the inside. Slowly, methodical, devious. And then she starts killing people, like CCH Pounder, whom she bludgeons to death with a hammer. It’s actually a pretty nasty scene, too. She doesn’t just hit her a couple of times, she really goes to town on her. It was so bad my wife said she couldn’t watch any more. Then again, my wife sort of is a pussy.

With that said, here’s the scene.

Then she does more bad stuff but the mom had caught on to her, only the family wasn’t believing her. The son knew and the daughter knew, but both were too scared of Esther to say anything, even though the mom made it clear she knew something was wrong. The dad, on the other hand, was a fucking douche and it’s a good damn thing he was murdered violently. It looked like he suffered through a lot of pain as well, which is good.

With that said, here’s the scene.

Some bad moves on the parts of the characters in the movie, which one should expect when watching a horror movie. Those moments when you’re all “What the fuck are you doing, dumbass?! Don’t go in there! GOD YOU’RE SUCH AN IDIOT! Fuck I hope you die.” And then you applaud when they die. Yeah, quite a few moments in there. Otherwise, pretty good movie. Not nearly enough deaths, but that’s something I’ll just never really be happy with, so I’m used to it. But at least the deaths we get out of this movie are pretty awesome.

I give this movie 4 of 5 stars. Or 8 of 10, if you need that kind of rating.

Wow: Natalie Martinez

Some of my more astute readers, or those of you who actually follow things now probably already know who Natalie Martinez is. I didn’t, until I watched the first episode of CBS’s “Under The Dome,” the hit TV show based off of Stephen King’s awesome fucking novel of the same name. Natalie plays one of the cops on the show in the fictional town of Chester’s Mill and when I first saw her on the show, even in full cop gear, I thought “Wow, she’s pretty hot. I’d like to see more of her.”

Natalie and some unimportant dude. CBS – Under The Dome

So I looked her up and found more of her and discovered that she’s been around for a while and has been in a lot of stuff over the years, such as music videos for popular artists of today and she’s also been photographed a lot wearing next to nothing, which was a nice find for me. I got what I wanted, more of her. So I thought I’d share. Needless to say she’s now on the hot-chicks-I’d-totally-bang-hard-list. Enjoy.

Finally, she was in a movie this year called Broken City with some other actors and she had a nice sex scene where she was topless. There’s a clip of it online somewhere if you want to see it and not watch the entire movie (cough, cough). I haven’t actually seen the movie, but I might.

The Dark Tower Movie

First of all, settle down. There is no Dark Tower movie… yet, although one is in the works and apparently has been for a while now and is actually set to come out on May 17, 2013, although that more than likely won’t be when it comes out. However, it’s nice to see one is in the works.

The Dark Tower, for those who don’t know, is a series of books by legendary author Stephen King. It has spawned a comic book series, an online game and a legion of fans worldwide. It is highly regarded as one of his best sets of works and is an epic all in its own right.

The Dark Tower is about the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain of Gilead and his adventures to the Dark Tower. I recently finished reading the third book and highly await my purchase later today of the fourth to get started on it ASAP.

Ron Howard is slated to direct it with Warner Bros. backing it. I found all of this info out on the website darktowermovies.com, which is the perfect site and domain to purchase before the movies come out. Whoever jumped on that was smart, even though I’m sure they’ll use something else in the end.

Since the movie is going to come out and there is talk that Javier Bardem is going to be filling the role of Roland, I’ve been thinking of my own actors to play the rest of the cast.

Javier, you might recall, was in Eat Pray Love as Felipe. He was also in No Country For Old Men as Anton Chigurh. He looks the part and is a much better selection for the role than my pick, John Marston from Red Dead Redemption.

Obviously my choice couldn’t happen since he’s a video game character. Also a younger Clint Eastwood would be nice, but that can’t happen either.

In the role of Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker/Susannah Dean, I think the perfect fit for her would be Rutina Wesley of True Blood fame.

She has the accent, the attitude, and she isn’t too bad lookin’ either. Every time Susannah speaks in the books, I immediately think of Rutina.

As far as Eddie Dean and Jake Chambers go, I haven’t thought much on that since younger guys are required to play the parts. However, I do think Christian Slater would have been good for Eddie, you know, if he were younger.

Finally, as Randall Flagg I picture Voldemort.

So there it is. I know on Stephen King’s online community they have their own choices as to who they think would play best in these roles. But I don’t hang out there, so my word is naturally only my word. Are you looking forward to these movies? Currently it’s slated for 3 and a TV series as well. I know I’m looking forward to it. I hope to have the entire series read before they come out though. Hopefully they don’t screw it up like Syfy is about to screw up Eyes Of The Dragon.