Review- The Visit

The lesson to be learned...don't disappoint Pauline from 5/6...

As probably one of the worst Nicholas Sparks movies ever released, the name “The Best of Me” is misleading for the ordinary and extremely predictable story line. Former romance enthusiasts can foresee the happenings in the movie even before the film starts: Boy meets Girl, Girl is too good for Boy, Boy and Girl fall in love anyways, Girl’s parents don’t approve, Girl and Boy separate, Girl and Boy reunite decades afterwards and drop everything to be together again, Girl and Boy are still haunted by the ghosts of the past. (Sarcasm) “The Best of Me” of course features the infamous kiss in the rain, a montage of lovey-dovey happiness, and the caressing of faces during the exchange of words that are supposed to bring sentimental tears to the eyes of the audience only to instead cause laughter caused by the cliché-ness of it all.(ethos) The film eerily resembles and might as well be deemed the disappointing sibling to the classic Sparks film “The Notebook”. Even the actors in the film seems to have been chosen to resemble the well-known characters Noah and Allie. Overall, “The Best of Me” is a cheap shot for former Sparks films. Save your money, you’ve seen it many times before (only with different abs, long haired boys, and mid-length dresses)(parallel structure).

From Manhola Dargis-

In “The Visit,” an amusingly grim fairy tale, floorboards creak, doors squeak and lights lower and sometimes shriek to black. The story, a “Hansel and Gretel” redo for Generation Selfie(appositive + cultural ethos), has the virtue of simplicity and familiarity: A young brother and sister travel into the deep, dark woods, but where they once innocently held hands, they’re now holding camcorders to record an adventure quickened by anxious laughs, yelps and screams and one shivery long knife. These children don’t need someone else to immortalize their once-upon-a-time; they just point and shoot.

The director M. Night Shyamalan has a fine eye and a nice, natural way with actors, and he has a talent for gently rap-rap-rapping on your nerves. At his best, he skillfully taps the kinds of primitive fears that fuel scary campfire stories and horror flicks; at his worst (comparative conjunction), he tries too hard to be an auteur instead of just good, letting his overwrought stories and self-consciousness get in the way of his technique. After straining at originality for too long,(prepositional) he has gone back to basics in “The Visit,” with a stripped-down story and scale, a largely unknown (excellent) cast and one of those classically tinged tales of child peril that have reliably spooked audiences for generations.

This Hansel and Gretel come equipped not only with his-and-her cameras but also a Spielbergian(allusion modifier) family dynamic, featuring a loving if somewhat distracted single mother (Kathryn Hahn) and an absent father.(participial) One of those well-meaning women whose desires unwittingly unleash a world of chaos, Mom (as she’s credited) opens the movie with some yammering, squirming like a witness for the prosecution in front of a camera operated by her off-screen daughter, Becca (an appealing Olivia DeJonge).(double appositive-she just did that!) Becca and her younger brother, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould, a charmingly exuberant scene-stealer), are to stay with their maternal grandparents while Mom and her boyfriend go on a cruise, and Becca has decided to make a documentary about the trip, the first of many references to moviemaking.

 and the Wildcat Chronicle review

 For Monday:  

1. Decide what you are going to review.  Again, it must be some form of media-sorry- No review of Trump's coiffure...Film, Album, Tech, Show, Book, Food, Video Game, etc.  Check with me before you run too far with it.
2. Interact with the selection...multiple times.  Think about the various components that are worthy of review/critique.  What this writing will not slide into is a plot summary.  Take notes and begin to assemble categories of possible observations.  I can help with this.  You keen eye will reveal that your observations are not superficial.  Your ethos will be evident.