Genre Characters of the week: Dr. Newton Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb

For my oldest daughter's birthday last week, we saw our first IMAX 3D film, Guillermo de Toro's Pacific Rim.

The film, which was a heck of a lot of fun, and will hopefully introduce a whole new generation of kids to the Mech vs. Giant Moster film genre, focuses largely on the story of a burnt-out hero, called in from retirement for one last job.

My favourite characters in the film however, were the two monster (called Kaijus in the film) focused scientists, Dr. Newt Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, played by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman. 

Dr. Geiszler (pictured right), is the specialist in the Kaijus themselves, how they work, how their bodies function, and is sitting at the corner of being a scientist to almost being a fan of the creatures.  

Dr. Gottlieb (pictured left), is instead the scientist focused on the method by which these creatures have entered our world.  He's more introverted than Dr. Geiszler and definitely seems more at home in the lab than in the field.

Rather than simply playing the two characters as comic relief (which, to be fair, the do more than their share of), the story actually allows them to get into some pretty dark places in terms of their study of the creatures, and in the end their work does have a significant effect on the story.

In the end, they're not the main characters, but they were by far my favourites.

Movie Review: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

I thought I'd go back and watch the 2011 film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, co-written by Guillermo Del Toro, in preparation to see his newest film Pacific Rim later today.

Based on a 1973 TV Movie of the same name, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, focuses on a young girl, Sally, who has just moved from her mother's home in California to her fathers home on the East Coast of the United States.  The house itself, basically your giant creepy/elegant haunted house is pretty amazing.  As with all movies of this type, something creepy is going on in the house, and it seems to want Sally.

Unlike a lot of other stories however, the "something" in the house is pretty unique and also pretty terrifying.  Much of the movie focuses on what Sally discovers in the house and then how her Father and his new girlfriend react.

Personally, I found the film to be a lot of fun, and in addition to the house, it features both a library and a male librarian!  Which as a male librarian in training is always nice to see.

There are definitely some terrifying scenes, and if you wanted to watch it with kids, I might recommend you pre-screen it first, to see if it's the kind of thing your kid would like.