{"id":278,"date":"2012-03-13T01:42:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T01:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/movieox.com\/?p=278"},"modified":"2012-03-16T18:08:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T18:08:22","slug":"chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/?p=278","title":{"rendered":"Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people don\u2019t really remember how big a phenomenon The Blair Witch Project<\/em> was.\u00a0 I say \u201cdon\u2019t remember\u201d but I really mean actively suppress.\u00a0 This is because a disturbingly large number of you idiots thought the footage was real.\u00a0 I had arguments with at least a dozen people (and not anyone especially retarded, I\u2019d call most of them average to above average as far as intelligence, though that\u2019s still not saying much).\u00a0 You bring up the film today and the same idiots who thought it was real take a vocal shit on it.<\/p>\n

Then you have another large section of the population that was supremely upset the film didn\u2019t show \u201cthe witch\u201d.\u00a0 Basically the same people who didn\u2019t like the supremely under rated Contact <\/em>because you didn\u2019t get to see the alien.\u00a0 Venture Bros has a pretty good explanation of why that\u2019s just a stupid opinion.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m getting off track, I think found footage movies can be especially powerful.\u00a0 One can spend millions on a production that, using special effects and complicated film techniques, place the viewer in the heart of action.\u00a0 But somehow, grainy handheld camera footage seems more real and gives the viewer a sense (though he knows better in his heart) the action has really happened.\u00a0 And just to be clear, I\u2019m talking about fiction that is made to appear as if someone recorded an actual event and the recording was later \u201cfound\u201d.\u00a0 The film version of the literary style of Dracula <\/em>or War of the Worlds<\/em>.\u00a0 Which is nothing new.\u00a0 People have been making these films since they\u2019ve been making films.<\/p>\n

But with the evolution of digital effects, found footage has reached a new level.\u00a0 Cloverfield<\/em> is one such example (Oh and just a reminder: you same assholes bitch when you don\u2019t get to see the monster and you bitch when you do; pick one).\u00a0 Digital effects can be rendered to easily look photoreal on the lower quality found footage.\u00a0 So, we can do some interesting things with these movies (jets fighting Godzilla or Cthulhu or whatever that was supposed to be in Cloverfield<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Chronicle <\/em>is a story about 3 high school kids that discover SOMETHING underground that changes them.\u00a0 They slowly start to develop telekinetic skills and their whole world changes.\u00a0 And there are consequences.<\/p>\n

The plot film device is centered around the character Andrew.\u00a0 He is troubled teenager who is viciously abused by his father and begins to film his life as a sort of self defense mechanism.\u00a0 His cousin, Matt, is a bit of a douche who is from a kinder side of the family who is given to applying quotes of great philosophers inappropriately.\u00a0 Matt is friendly to Andrew but is attempting to climb the cursus honorum that is high school popularity and distances himself from Andrew in public.\u00a0 Steve, our 3rd<\/sup> hero, is an gifted athlete, honors student, and a lock for class president.\u00a0 He\u2019s the type of kid everyone would like to hate, but he\u2019s just too damn kind hearted.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the meat of the story begins when the 3 kids are all at a rave (Steve rocking, Matt trying to rock, Andrew filming then becoming a victim of drunken bullying).\u00a0 Steve and Matt discover the SOMETHING underground (it was making nifty noises), and rescue Andrew from his post bullied depression because Andrew has his camera and they want to film it.<\/p>\n

The SOMETHING has an adverse (or beneficial depending on how you look at it) reaction to the camera and the 3 kids barely get back to the surface alive.\u00a0 Over time they slowly realize they can move things with their minds.\u00a0 And they\u2019re getting stronger.<\/p>\n

Each of the 3\u2019s very different backgrounds and personalities come into play as they try to cope with their newfound ability.<\/p>\n

The film does an excellent job of extrapolating what kind of things somebody could do with telekinesis as well as how they might play on the main characters\u2019 respective psychologies.\u00a0 The filmmakers do high school pain and awkwardness and deepish philosophical questions equally well.<\/p>\n

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this film.\u00a0 Well worth seeing in the theater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people don\u2019t really remember how big a phenomenon The Blair Witch Project was.\u00a0 I say \u201cdon\u2019t remember\u201d but I really mean actively suppress.\u00a0 This is because a disturbingly large number of you idiots thought the footage was real.\u00a0 I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}