The Fourth Kind

[danlo]

Watched The Fourth Kind last weekend with Mila Joavivich (or however you spell that) and Will Patton on Lucimay's recommendation--totally freaky movie and it being based on real life events completely blew my mind-see this film!!!!!

[dANdeLION]

Milla Jojovich. She played Leeloo in 5th Element. a movie I really liked. I've been meaning to see The Fourth Kind.

[Zarathustra]

Every bit of this movie is fake. Don't be fooled by the pretty girl.

It was interesting. Not a bad piece of fiction.

[danlo]

Really, dam, it still was pretty dam good--fooled the hell o/o me, I guess it would have to be or the entire city of Nome, Alaska would be pretty pissed. (What do they do with you at parties Z? Put you on a leash and throw water on you? )

[dANdeLION]

Don't be fooled by the pretty girl.

I treasure every moment I have with her!

[Zarathustra]

Really, dam, it still was pretty dam good--fooled the hell o/o me, I guess it would have to be or the entire city of Nome, Alaska would be pretty pissed. (What do they do with you at parties Z? Put you on a leash and throw water on you? )

I'm not entirely sure about the party comment, but it was funny nonetheless. I don't mean to be a downer by inserting a bit of reality into the discussion, but this movie pissed me off.

I watched it on the recommendation of my brother, who sold me on it by telling me it was real and that real footage was included. And then the movie begins by telling me the same thing. I was prepared to believe. I was willing to watch with an open mind.

I appreciated the documentary, side-by-side style. It lended credibility to the premise by including the "real" doctor. It also helped that the actress playing the "real" doctor was decidely less pretty than Milla, making it even more believable becuase you'd assume that Hollywood would put an attractive face in a movie to "pretty it up."

This illusion of reality was crucial for the impact of the thrills and horrors; it added to the creepy factor. It made even the scenes that weren't suspenseful have more tension than they would otherwise. So this reality angle was a crucial part of the movie's effectiveness. That's important.

The breaking point for me was when we're supposed to be watching "real" footage of a person floating above his bed. I was enjoying the hell out of this ride until I saw that. That's when I knew I'd been had, that I'd been lied to. The only other time I've seen someone float over her bed was in Ghostbusters. That shit doesn't happen anywhere else but in the movies.

I was pissed, so I looked it up online. Sure enough, the "real" doctor is an actress. There was no real footage anywhere in this movie. There was no group of people who kept seeing an owl. All of these elements were invented by the screenwriters. The only element of truth was some missing persons cases investigated by the FBI. But these mostly turned out to be attributed to people getting drunk and wondering off in sub-zero Alaskan winters.

If the movie hadn't explicitly told us this was true, I could have just sat back and enjoyed the ride. I thought Blaire Witch Project was decent. I had no problems with them presenting it as reality. But this movie succeeds in a large part because of the lie they tell you at the beginning. It treats us like chumps, treats us like we're stupid. I don't like that in my fiction.