the://craigslist.killer

     Tonight on Lifetime was a made for tv movie based on the real story of The Craigslist Killer. It was actually a pretty good movie for being a lifetime film. The sad thing is I really don't ever remember hearing about this story or this guy. Then again I don't really watch the news, so I'm sure someone probably remembers seeing the real news stories.
     Philip Markoff (Jake McDorman) is a top of his class medical school student engaged to Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner). The movie depicts their life and building their relationship bond, but, also at the same time showing there maybe some more deep down in Philips past. Philip has some deep dark secrets he's been able to hide from his wife, he likes to meet women from Craigslist that advertise for erotic services and tie them up, humiliate them and rob them in hotel rooms. On top of that he also has gambling problems and anger issues. He's been able to hide all this and get away with it until one of his hotel meetings goes wrong and ends up killing the girl he is only suppose to be robbing.
     William Baldwin plays Detective Bennett who is tasked with finding this so called Craigslist killer, the only lead he has to go on are fuzzy pictures of average Joe in Boston. The break he needs to link Philip to the crimes comes when Digital Forensics is able to pull a real name and IP address from the Craigslist name used to meet these girls. After being under surviellance and attempting to leave the Boston area, he is arrested and booked into jail. His fiance Megan can't believe what is happening, how can this happen to a straight-A popular med school student. She fights for him and helps him plea his not guility that they obviously have the wrong man.
      When the detectives search their aparment and find a hidden 9mm, handcuffs, ducktape and sixteen pairs of panties hidden under the bed, they find their evidence and she finally finds that she has to admit that he is who they say he is, a mentally disturbed killer. Having finally come to terms she visits him at jail and confronts him and finally calls off the engagement and leaves him. One year after their wedding should of took place, Philip successfully commits suicide in his jail cell. That's the story pretty quick and dirty, don't want to spoil everything in case this movie hits dvd or you want to look it up on Lifetime and catch a re-running of it.
     After doing some digging i'm really surprised at how closely this movie actually followed the real events that took place from 2009 - 2010. You can read about the real Philip Markoff on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Markoff and Boston Fox's website http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/report%3A-'craigslist-killer'-philip-markoff-commits-suicide-in-jail.  There's a couple more based on real event movies coming to Lifetime in the next few weeks that were previews during this one that look pretty good and after seeing how well this one was actually done I may just have to put them onto the DVR to watch.

Avalon High

    

     One of the more recent DCOM's (Disney Channel Original Movie) was kind of a bust. It's based on a young adult novel of the same name by Meg Cabot, known for 'The Princess Diaries'. If you watched the Disney Channel promos for this it looks like people from this school are going to magically swap places and time jump to medieval Camelot times, well they do, for the last maybe 5 minutes of the movie. The rest of it is a sappy love triangle story between three kids at Avalon High.
     The idea of the movie being all about Medieval Europe is implanted from the beginning, the movie is centered around Allie Pennington (Brittany Robertson) who's parents are both Medieval literature professors and have just moved and taken a contract at a local University. Allie goes to Avalon High and is immediately wooed by the football jock of the school Will Wagner (Gregg Sulkin) and at the same time finds a fancy in a brainiac named Miles (Joey Pollari). All three have the same European History class taught by Mr. Moore (Steve Valentine) and Allie just happens to arrive at Avalon High when he is teaching the Arthur legend and just happens to be using a text book about Arthur written by her parents. Also in this class is Will's girlfriend, Jen (Molly C. Quinn), his best friend Lance (Christopher Tavarez) and school bully Marco (Devon Graye).
     So, to cut the story down short and to the point and not having to go over the whole drama end of the movie I'll keep it to the main Medieval premise. Allie and Miles have been given a research paper on The Order Of The Bear, they'll come to find out it was a secret order that believed Arthur will one day return reincarnated. Everything they uncover leads them to believe that Arthur will return the night of the big football game. They suspect that Will is actually the reincarnated Arthur and he'll lead the football team to victory, and when they find Jen cheating with Lance, well there's your Guinevere and Lancelot characters. Also Miles now seems to be getting headaches which leads to visions of things to come making him into a bit or a psychic or could is he really Merlin, then you have Marco who wants nothing more than to see Will blow the whole game, making him Mordred out to kill King Arthur. All through the movie you have Allie and Miles trying to convince everyone including their teacher that Arthur is actually coming back to Earth on the night of the big football game at Avalon High.
     Finally at the end we get our big show down in the school theater where they just happen to have a set made for Julius Caesar that gives the period look and the handy placement of a sword (Excalibur) for Arthur to use. Except, Will is not Arthur....Since no one will probably watch this, if you want to stop reading because I'm going to spoil the ending.......Allie turns out to be King Arthur and her teacher Mr. Moore is actually Mordred. I know, how and why did Arthur come back as a girl is beyond me as well. This whole group of kids and their teacher are magically transported to a European landscape and battle it out and at the end, bam, back to present day just as security walks in to take Moore away. Like I said there's some stretches in the movie to be sure and most of it just felt like a teen high school chick flick making use of the Arthurian legend as a metaphor for what happens at the school, and using the medieval  theme as a way to attract some boys to the movie. In case that didn't get the teenage boys attention Director Stuart Gillard decided to throw in some jogging shots of Allies butt and chest that were very obvious why they were there (totally not needed scenes).  A final technical note this movie has some bad sound editing and whenever there seems to be any kind of background noise or music the actors volume drops and then when the background noise ends their voices go back up. Final summary, not Disney Channel's best movie by a long shot, but, it's still watchable and you won't feel the urge like some other bad TV movies to turn it off.

Shrek Forever After

    

     (Updated 01/02/11) Well today starts off the year long movie celebration, too bad it started with a movie under par. 'Shrek Forever' After aka 'Shrek: The Final Chapter', after watching it I'm glad it is the final Shrek movie. Actually they should of ended on the third movie and it would of been a good ending for Shrek. This installment just felt really stretched thin for story and new ways to tell old jokes.

     The movie starts off with a flash back to the original story and a side story to it, where the king and queen are going to pay off Rumpelstiltskin to break Fiona's curse, until they get wind of Fiona being rescued from the tower. After that it's back to the present, where the third movie left off, Shrek, Fiona, and the three babies are getting into an everyday routine. Everyday routine is not what Shrek wants though as he secretly yearns to go back to the old ways when he was a mean ogre and could do what ever he pleased. Keeping this longing inside and with the repetition of normal life, finally leads him basically into a mid-life crisis moment.
      Still wanting to rule the whole kingdom, Rumpelstiltskin has been looking for his big break, when he over hears Shrek and Fiona arguing. Hatching his plan he plays on Shreks needs, and offers him one day as a real ogre for one day of his childhood (Yes, its referred to as 'Give a day, Get a Day can't help feeling they based that on Disney). What Shrek doesn't know is that Rumple decides to take the day Shrek is born, hence Shrek never being born he never met his friends or Fiona and at the end of the day will cease to exist. Giving room for the main plot of the movie (Set in a alternate reality), to undo the deal with Rumple (Find True Love's Kiss) that being getting his old friends to trust him and winning Fiona's love all over again and that being made harder now that in this alternate dimension Fiona was never rescued from the tower and is the leader of an Ogre rebellion to overthrow Rumplestiltskin. Along the way to getting all these tasks done Shrek learns that he really did have it made and had a good life and what was he thinking wanting to give it all up.
     Now the big question is...will this actually be the final Shrek movie or will Dreamworks give into box office takes and green light a fifth movie. I sure hope not, I like Shrek and all, but, this one really showed how there's not much left to go story wise. Of course though, you know the kids will love it, with Shreks burp and fart sense of humor, and being an animated movie. I just think with so much animation being produced now, not like when Shrek first started being new to CGI, that now story lines are going to have to surpass not just the animation. Also on a side note in case any Universal execs ever read this...update Shrek 4-D in the parks, it bridges the gap between movies 1 and 2, the fourth movie came and went, so I think the show is a little outdated now. There was a neat little extra on the Blu-Ray I enjoyed. that showed how technology has advanced over the last decade since the original Shrek movie and comparing similar scenes from them to now. Still the extras on the disc weren't as good as the ones Disney usually includes with their animated films on dvd.