Open Windows (2014)

-Open Windows, which opens this weekend in limited release I believe, follows a website designer who gets dragged along on a string of escalading events by a hacker and thief. It is a little more complicated than that, but I don't care about it enough to explain it.

-So Open Windows feels like a student film, but not the good kind. Because it was really lame. Its story was unreal and cheesy, with some forced plot twists and an ending that was dumb and didn't make ANY sense. Still a better ending that The Maze Runner.

-It's tone, well it doesn't really have a set tone. I wasn't sure if I should be nervous or anxious or excited or laughing.

-It's acting is very on-par with short films. Even Elijah Wood isn't good in it, and you can tell he doesn't really care. Everyone else is pretty lame.

-I will give it one thing, a lot of it looked like a continuous shot and it had a good pace because of it. But at the same time, it felt very cluttered, and like it just didn't know where it wanted to go.

-It's effects were not terrible. But nothing in it looked good or believable.

-Content: There is no listed rating, but it is not unrated, so I didn't know what to expect. Apparently it has a few F-words and some partial nudity. So R. That's all you had to say IMDb. R.

-Overall Open Windows was very below the standard of acceptable films. It was not good, but not quit so bad it's good. So I will easily say that Open Windows is not worth seeing. Ever. 3/10. Which for those of you keeping track, is even below Transformers 4.

Fmovies: This movie was a thrill ride from beginning to end. All the actors did well, the graphics and direction was amazing, and the story unfolded nicely with some great twists. Anyone saying the plot was 'messy' or 'convoluted' obviously didn't pay much attention:/ It's extremely easy to follow and doesn't take us too far from reality (it's a movie anyways). Characters make good decisions for the most part, and overall a great watch if you like the scifi/hacker/thriller/suspense/mystery genre... which don't we all?

Once again disregard the haters and give this innovative and uncharted gem a watch 10/10 to balance out the cynics, and let fairly happy movie watchers know it's worth it.

I really don't see how this movie deserves so many bad reviews. At the very least, it is interesting formally and esthetically. It gives a whole new meaning to the classic drama concept of unity of time and space: About 80% of the action takes place within the confines of a laptop computer screen, and the rest is confined to other screens; most of it takes place within a few hours, and the rest is introduced via video playback.

The production design, which in this case is actually UI design, is beautiful. The acting is nothing special but adequate. The thriller aspect has its interesting twists and turns, but that's not really the point. I do not believe the social commentary should be taken too seriously either. The point of the movie is providing a reflection of how media construct the world, and today's media are digital and delivered via the internet. If you don't just like to be taken on a ride, but if you appreciate if it's done in a smart way, give this one a chance.

Oh, and of course: God bless Sasha Grey!

Open Windows fmovies. The Plot

An actress named Jill refuses to have dinner with Nick, a fan who won a date with her in an Internet contest.

In return, a guy named Chord, posing as Jill's campaign manager, helps Nick to follow in the footsteps of the actress from his own computer.

Nick starts a game in which he realizes that is only a puppet into the maniac plans devised by Chord, to hunt down the star.

Sort of a tech movie written by some one who knows nothing about technology.

It's really dumb, even though parts of it are watchable despite being completely unbelievable. And that's really the problem with the movie. It's a bit like Rear Window without the believability.

OPEN WINDOWS is a high-concept thriller that works better as an exercise in form and style than as a movie. Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, and starring Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey, the story is about a guy named Nick Chambers (Wood) who wins a date with actress Jill Goddard (Grey) through an online contest. After finding out the date has been canceled, a mysterious stranger named Chord (who claims to be affiliated with Jill) allows Nick to watch her secretly from his laptop, and things start to get crazy from there.

When I first started watching this, I was reminded of a couple of films that Elijah Wood did before this one: MANIAC and GRAND PIANO. I thought of MANIAC because every shot in this movie is from the first person point of view, and of GRAND PIANO because his character is constantly being given instructions by a mostly unseen third party. What I thought this film did effectively was integrate technology in an interesting way, and the way the story was presented was at least creative. It takes a while to get used to, but once you accept the concept then it's easier to get into the film. It's actually not too bad of a film either, for the first two-thirds of it. You have this rather timid individual who is given the opportunity to spy on someone he admires through the miracle of modern technology, and when things start to go wrong the film is able to maintain a good level of tension. Nothing in this film is predictable, and that is probably the highest praise I can give it. Still, despite the modern trappings it is rather silly and convoluted. I won't give away any twists, but it takes a turn about two-thirds of the way through that kind of ruined the experience for me.

As far as the acting is concerned, nobody really gave a bad performance, but nobody was spectacular either, including Elijah Wood who seemed to be doing another variation on the type of character he's played in his last couple of films. Sasha Grey wasn't too bad, but I wasn't expecting too much from somebody who came out of porn. Overall, I thought that the story, as implausible as it was, started out pretty good but then derails in the final act. There were some good observations on obsession with celebrities and the terrifying possibilities of modern technology, but it is mostly lost in a standard thriller. It's being billed as a 21st century REAR WINDOW, but most people would probably be better off watching that instead.

OK, the most frightening aspect of this film is that it was actually included in today's line-up at London's Frightfest.

Not scary, not thrilling, just extremely tedious. The director got caught up in his gimmicky virtuoso approach to a sub-par screenplay with a mildly interesting premise. At one point things got so convoluted and ludicrous that he attempted to claw his way out of the plot contrivances hole he dug himself in, not with one, but with two car chase sequences.

During the Q&A people left 'en-masse', brutal but necessary payback.

What a stinking mess!