afterlife Tagged Articles at Cinematical

...and here's where I usually shake my virtual fist at the horror heavens and ask "Why? Holy sweet sausage on rye, WHY the holy hell are they offering up a sequel to Pulse, which is easily one of the lamest of all the very lame J-horror remakes?" (Dramatic pause) "Why?!?"

But I won't. There's obviously some sort of fan-base for this title, because movie studios don't bang out sequels (even DTV sequels) if they don't expect some sort of return on their investment. If we're looking for silver linings, we could note that both White Noise 2 and Wrong Turn 2 were more entertaining than first expected -- but if we choose to go the snarky route we could remind you that the star of Pulse ended up mocking it (to hilarious effect) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall! (Dang that scene made me laugh.)

Written and directed by Joel Soisson, Pulse 2: Afterlife stars Jamie Bamber from Battlestar: Galactica and a whole bunch of actors I've never heard of. (I don't mean that in a nasty way.) I'm assuming the plot has something to do with supernatural technology. Visit Shock for the brand-new cover art, and circle September 30 on your calendar if this is a title you're after. And hey, at least it's not PG-13, right? Matter of fact: Rated R for violence, disturbing images, some sexuality, nudity and language. Already it's better than the first one.

I just caught Philip Gröning's extraordinary documentary Into Great Silence (2 screens and opening wider), about Carthusian monks living in a charterhouse in the French Alps. It runs just past two hours and 45 minutes and I would wager that no more than two hundred words are spoken throughout. The film merely shows the monks going about their daily business: praying, chanting, caring for gardens, shoveling snow, sawing firewood, cooking, eating, etc. I have to admit part of my enthusiasm for the film stems from the fact that it contains no talking heads or clips; I was just about ready to scream if I saw one more documentary shot in that tired old PBS format. But I was also drawn to the film's meditative rhythm.

Or is it just slow? Already some of the reviews have trudged out the word "boring" to describe the film, and certainly it's a hard sell. But why? It's apparent that Gröning doesn't have any particular viewpoint about the monks; he's not trying to sell us on their dignity or righteousness, nor is he trying to uncover some secret, seamy underbelly. He merely wishes to show them to us. And in his great, quiet stretches, a viewer can easily get lost in his or her own thoughts. Indeed, I believe that Gröning actually prefers us to get lost in our own thoughts.