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Thriller Movie Review: Bound to Vengeance

Title: Bound To Vengeance
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Director: Jose Manuel Cravioto
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230213/

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.

This movie was recommended to me by an author friend of mine. Given that I don’t shy away from the sometimes terrible thriller/horror movies on Netflix (except the ones that are CLEARLY Lifetime movies), I didn’t hesitate to give this one a shot.

Synopsis: A young girl, chained in the basement of a sexual predator, escapes and turns the tables on her captor.

First of all, the protagonist was a young woman, not a young girl. Young girl implies to me a ten year old. Second, after I viewed the movie, I went back to the imdb listing and discovered that two men wrote the screenplay, which didn’t surprise me at all.

One big thing for me with this film: Black woman dies first. WTF? We haven’t got past that yet? Seriously? Enough with this already.

Basically, young woman escapes, then realizes dude has women trapped up all over the place. He tells her, if he dies, they all die since he’s the only one who knows where they are. So, young woman makes the choice to try to rescue all the women.

One complaint I read about the movie was that if she’d just escaped, she’d be all about going to the police. I give the movie a pass, because, her decision to go rescue the other girls hooked me into the movie.

So, like I said previously, she goes to rescue the black woman first, and she dies by accident. The second rescue goes just as badly. But even as stuff went down, I found myself asking “Why are you letting the psycho dude do all the talking? You know these women must be a little nuts…at least TRY to talk some sense into them, don’t just sit back and let him run his mouth.”

These two incidents happened at the beginning of the action and kind set me against the movie. The flashbacks are interesting, but reminded me of Cloverfield. As a woman of a certain age, I was like “why the heck is all this being filmed, how boring”, even as I knew it was being filmed for a payoff at the end. Chekov’s video footage, if you will.

The confrontation with the secondary villain was just strange and not very compelling.

I will say that the main actress played the part to the hilt and she did an excellent job. The issue of sex trafficking and kidnapping is made real without being super obvious. The material itself, however, was not up to par and parts of the movie had me scratching my head.

This could have been much more than it was. I wouldn’t give it a second viewing, but I don’t feel it was a waste of time.

Grade: C

More than 28 Days

Emmett Chappelle, inductee for 2007 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame Photo Courtesy of NASA.gov — Emmett Chappelle, inductee for 2007 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Photo Courtesy of NASA.gov

More than 28 days is a hashtag that caught my attention on Google+ during the month of February. The poster, Kymberlyn Reed, took a unique approach to Black History Month. Instead of using the #blackhistorymonth tag, she used her tag to hammer home the fact that Black History Month should certainly be “observed” longer than twenty eight days.

Ms. Reed has the right idea. While Black History Month,(just like Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and other months/observances I’m sure I’m missing), serves to highlight some the achievements of Black people, it shouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb. Black people helped build the United States, and often their achievements were either swept under the rug or stolen by whites.

When I had a classroom of eager to learn fourth and fifth graders, I certainly didn’t wait until February to tell them about what is basically the history of the United States. In addition, I made a distinct effort not go for the “easy” ones – Dr. King, Harriet Tubman and good old Garret Morgan and his traffic light.

Even if the history books don’t fully acknowledge it, Black people were and still are an integral part of our heritage here in the U.S. Without them, there would be no dustpans, ironing boards, printing presses, typewriters, automatic elevator doors, mops, clothes dryers, pencil sharpeners or gasp! fountain pens!! Not to mention, the various colleges and universities dotting our great country.

People ask – Why is there a Black History Month? Well, there shouldn’t be. However, if the contributions of all Americans were acknowledged fairly in American history books, there wouldn’t HAVE to be a Black History Month.

So if you’re on Google+, or even if you’re not, stop by and check out the #morethan28days tag. You might learn something. I know I did.

Learn More:

http://www.blackpast.org/

http://www.blackpast.org/aah/101-african-american-firsts

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/national/unpublished-black-history

http://blackinhistory.tumblr.com/

Music Mondays – Sound of Silence

Hey there! Happy Monday to all of you! I enjoy the new start of the week when I can sit down in front of the computer and get to work. Check out the new graphic! I figured if I didn’t have to create a new graphic every time I had to write this blog post, it would make things a little easier. We’ll see!

Music Monday -Cover Songs – Sound of Silence

I am always a little behind when it comes to music. I don’t really listen to the radio and depend on my Google Play library. My music library includes the American Songbook, show tunes, some almost up to the minute music and of course, a healthy dose of the eighties.
I was tooling around on youtube a week or so ago and I found this song by Disturbed. I liked their cover of Land of Confusion: it has a much darker tone and is a little less “poppy” than the original Genesis version. However, I am a bit of a folk music fan. I love my John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul and Mary. Curious to see what they did with the song, I clicked. And was hooked.

First, however, if you haven’t heard it, take a listen to Simon and Garfunkel’s version:

When Simon and Garfunkel did the song, it was a telling commentary on society’s behavior toward one another…”People hearing without listening”….”People writing songs that voices never share” and “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.” Nice, kinda abstract statements.

Disturbed takes it and makes it personal. Way personal. The singer’s voice is gut-wrenching, giving the impression he’s given the lyrics a lot of thought and things haven’t changed so very much since the song came out over thirty years ago.

Once you add in the sparse, minimalistic images of the video, you see Disturbed has turned the song into an experience.

Listen the first time. Pay attention to David Draiman’s growl and how he attacks the words. Then, once you’ve absorbed, add the video.

What a stirring interpretation of this song.

mystic sample blog post

This is an example of a written blog post. You can create as many blog posts as you like and be as creative as you wish! This is an example of a written blog post. You can create as many blog posts as you like and be as creative as you wish! Photo Credit Kat Graham

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.

Music Monday -Cover Songs – Sound of Silence

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.