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mike_goyert604
Reviews
The Oregonian (2011)
Well Calculated Experimental Terror
You need to know what you're walking into see when you buy your ticket for The Oregonian: a tactful, minimal, indulgent terror experimental film. Warning given, I have to hand it the director, because he had an incredibly firm grasp on what he was trying to do. A young woman leaves her farm in the serene Pacific Northwest and enters into solitary landscape of terror, devoid of almost any human contact. I could sit here and try to interpret the film but ultimately you will have to make your own conclusions.
The film is saturated with harsh, glaring and alarming flash cuts and bizarre scenes which offer it a streak of unpredictability, keeping the viewer constantly alarmed and constantly plagued with a very unpleasant vibe. These cuts and 'montages' which pretty much assault your senses are carefully placed and timed, heightening the disconcerting tone which the movie rides on.
The sound design and score compliment the visual style very well. The second time I watched the movie, I muted it to see how a lack of noise would affect the viewing, and I was impressed to see how much the score lent itself to the construction of the scenes. Turn up your volume and turn down your lights.
There seems to be quite a bit of symbolism in the imagery which can be debriefed in any number of ways. Part of the beauty of this film, more so than other, more mainstream films, is you really really get the sense that the director had his own meanings in mind but the vagueness he implements in the dark symbolism allows you to draw your own conclusions. Not a movie easily pushed out of sight and mind.
Overall, I was pleased with The Oregonian so much so (as an experimental film) that I've watched it numerous times with numerous people and had a different experience each time. If you like dark, terrifying experimental work which relies heavily on imagery and sound, you will love The Oregonian.
The Dead Outside (2008)
The Boredom On Screen
I saw this titled in the movie store with a few festival nods printed on the front and thought it might be a good, indie, low-budget watch. How wrong I was. The writing/story, or lack there of, is drawn out, packed with dialogue that is there for the sake of having dialogue and allows for no surprises. This is fine because the repetitive score is, more often than not, drowning out the actors thick accents. We are supposed to invest ourselves in a meandering, rarely-active protagonist and a grumpy, tweaked out young lady who occasionally allows a small detail about her past to slip. Other than that, the story is told mostly through randomly placed flashbacks or when the characters directly explain their pasts to one another in one on one chats. The cinematography is clunky, jarring, and while the location is beautiful in a 'barren-farm-hills' sort of way, it becomes tiring, recycled and bleak. Any action sequences are too dark to see and the 'dead' are really just rambling, raving infected people who can't seem to climb fences, or pose any real threat at all. I tried to love this movie, then I tried even harder to like it, and as my last resort I attempted to see it as a minimalist film, but even that failed tremendously. The only aspect of this movie that I can give credit to is the overwhelmingly bleak and isolated tone it creates. But then again, that could have just been in my head as the credits rolled after what can only be described as a bad film.
A bad movie is a bad movie and nothing about this flick escapes that label.