I based my decision to watch this film almost entirely off of what I saw on the DVD case. Shia LaBeof…creepy, menacing binoculars…I’m interested. Unfortunately for me, I was drawn in like a fly to a bug light because, contrary to what the front cover says, Disturbia is anything but “a scorching nail-biter that will have you jumping out of your seat”. Allow me to explain.

To begin with, the storyline is not exactly original. Kale, a teenage boy deeply affected by his father’s death, is put under house arrest after assaulting a teacher at school. With nothing else to do, Kale begins to routinely observe his neighborhood and soon witnesses some strange events occurring inside one man’s house that drags Kale and everyone he cares for into life-threatening danger (…Hitchcock’s Rear Window, anyone?). 

And when I say “drags”, I mean it. For being labeled as a thriller, Disturbia has very little thrill involved. The advancement of plot is so slow, I was about three fourths of the way through before anything frightening occurred, and even then it is very overdone and very unoriginal. The overall feel of the film ends up being more teen-flick-y than anything else. After a while, I found myself only half-caring about what happened to anyone in the end. Even if it wasn’t so closely related to Hitchcock’s film, I don’t feel like writer Christopher Landon or director D.J. Caruso did a proper job in making Disturbia stand out on its own.

The fact that Steven Spielberg had been an executive producer was a complete surprise for me. There are a few moments of amusement throughout that remind me a little of Spielberg’s humor, but besides that, this film really doesn’t feel connected with his expertise at all.

The original soundtracks also lacked a strong, unique quality and made me more annoyed than freaked out. Disturbia mostly uses the method of music shrieking when something pops surprisingly onto the screen, which works, but if it’s used too often on things that aren’t even scary (i.e. the character turning around and seeing their best friend instead of a murderer), it gets a little redundant and makes me question if the director really knows how to scare an audience.

I was generally disappointed in the acting as well. It wasn’t that it was bad, it just felt very generic and flat. I had seen good things from Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix trilogy) and had heard good things about David Morse (The Green Mile), but neither seemed especially electrifying in their Disturbia roles. It may have had something to do with the way the characters were written, but it just felt like the mother was a mother and the creepy man was a creepy man, nothing more.  

On the other hand, Shia LaBeouf (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) probably brought the most believablity to this film for me. It’s ironic, considering he use to make a living in teenage media as Louis Stevens on Disney Channel’s Even Stevens, but had I not watched that TV show, I would’ve never believed him to be the same actor. LaBeouf’s ability to conform so smoothly to a character is probably the reason why his career has come out of Disturbia unscathed. He is definitely an actor to keep an eye on.

To be honest, unless you’re a diehard LaBeouf fanatic, I would not recommend this movie. There really isn’t anything in it that we haven’t seen before. You’d be better off sticking with Rear Window and catching Transformers or Indiana Jones for your LaBeouf fix.

Ah, Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet street. The tale of Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), unjustly exiled for a crime he did not commit, who returns anew to seek revenge on the judge who stole his family. With the help of Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) Todd takes to his old job with relish, guaranteeing his customers a closer shave than they’ve ever had before.

Director Tim Burton has already proven a talent for creating gothic worlds, but with this film I think he’s outdone himself. Old London town has never been so ghoulishly gruesome as through Burton’s eyes. The opening sequence brilliantly drops you into a world that’s dark and somber. A world were the likes of Sweeney Todd’s style of hairdressing and Mrs Lovett’s meat pie shop would surely flourish.

This version of Todd’s tale is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s stage musical. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of musicals. If this hadn’t been directed by Burton I probably would have given it a miss. Still, every time one of the actors took a deep breath before bursting into song I tried not to follow suit. And, to be fair there are some fine numbers that I enjoyed. There were inevitably, a fair few where I just glazed over and looked at the scenery instead.

The acting doesn’t miss a step all the way through. Depp and Bonham Carter are perfect as the two lead characters, and they are more than ably matched by the supporting cast. Alan Rickman does an nicely understated Judge Turpin and Timothy Spall is truly odious as his sidekick Beadle, but it’s Edward Sanders who really is outstanding as the young gin drinking Toby.

The only thing I would say is if you’re not a fan of core I would probably give the second half of the movie a miss. Burton teases out a nightmare of blood as Todd’s blades begin to cut deeper, and the sickly red is a vivid contrast to the dark backdrop. After a couple of decades of desensitization, it’s probably a good thing that I can still be shocked by watching such graphic violence on the big screen .

After watching the movie I can’t imagine it being made without Burton’s hand in the mix. He has produced another gothic nightmare that shocks and twists nicely. I just wish it wasn’t a musical! Not for the faint hearted or squeamish, but a lot of fun and hugely enjoyable. Forget the popcorn and eat a meat pie instead.

A couple years ago I read this book called Women Who Kill and it was all about women serial killers throughout history.  Why was I reading this book? Well, it was on sale and seemed interesting.  There are a couple women whose names still jump out at me when I see them, as I remember reading their stories in that book.  One of those women is Martha Beck, who along with her boyfriend Ray Fernandez, were known as the Lonely Heart killers.  Their story was interesting to me, and when I found out they were making a movie about them I was pretty excited to see the inside story of what went on.  I forgot about the movie for awhile (it didn’t get much press, did it?) but when I saw it at my local video store I decided I’d better give it a try.  

Lonely Hearts follows two sides of the story.  Of course it follows Beck (Salma Hayek, Frida) and Fernandez (Jared Leto, Requiem for a Dream). The movie gives little background on them, and does show how they met, but not much beyond that.  It then goes on to show how they swindled lonely women into falling in love with Ray so he could steal all their money, and then kill them when they were through.  Beck poses as Ray’s sister to not arouse suspicion, although her jealousy gets in the way and makes most of the single women nervous to be around her.  The movie often switches over to the detectives hunting the killers mainly focusing on one, Elmer Robinson (John Travolta, Pulp Fiction).  Robinson has had many problems in his own life, and has stepped away from being a detective.  Now with these new killers on the loose, his interest is renewed and he becomes obsessed with finding them with the help of Charles Hilderbrandt (James Gandolfini, The Sopranos). 

I did have a couple problems with this movie.  Something was wrong with the sound in this film.  It would go from being really loud, to quiet, and back again at unexplainable moments.  At first I thought my boyfriend was messing with the volume, but when I asked him he said he wasn’t. I don’t know what the sound editor/mixer was thinking when he did this.  I also had a problem with the way the movie was focused.  I wanted more about Beck and Fernandez, not about Robinson.  The movie really only shows four murders, although they were linked to almost 20!  After watching I did find out that Robinson was the director’s (Todd Robinson) grandfather, so I guess that makes sense as to why he focused the movie the way he did.  However, I thought I was renting a movie about serial killers, not about the detectives who captured them so I felt misled. 

After getting over both of those, I can say I thought that Hayek and Leto were wonderful.  They actually made this movie seem more like a tragic love story, then a movie about murderers.  Hayek made me actually believe her reasoning for doing the things she did, and Leto showed Fernandez as confident and hesitant at the same time.  I also thought Travolta did well with Robinson, showing the many emotions he was feeling. Gandolfini on the other hand…well he was kind of annoying.  He also narrated the movie, so there was no getting away from him.  Also he had this thick East coast accent that made it hard to understand him at times (the sound mixing didn’t help this problem). 

In the end, I’d probably give this movie a C+.  I would have preferred more information in general about Beck and Fernandez and less about Robinson, but it still had its interesting moments.  I would recommend this movie just to see Hayek and Leto’s performances, which I feel were the most enjoyable parts of this movie.