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Reviews
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Graphic comedy with sleep breaks.
Now that I have come to terms with and am less annoyed by Ryan Reynolds' whole Ace-Ventura-Lite-with-abs persona, I was able to enjoy some pretty hilarious dance routines and nicely timed line deliveries, and quite frankly some pretty great visual presentations, my favourite being the villain's robot skull lair.
Emma Corrin gives an impressively cold turn as the quite well conceived evil foe.
The problem with this film is that you think you're getting a separate entity from the usual MCU, with its endless boring, excessively complicated expositional lore jargon and drawn out dramatic monologues, and tendency to switch between outright slapstick to stark stare into the distance teary misery... So, parts of this film are like a nuclear hit of caffeine, then others are like a tranquilizer dart that could take down an angry lion.
Apartment 7A (2024)
Masterful.
Julia Garner is again proving the strongest young performer in film and television of the last several years, wandering with ease through great drama, casually turning up in the Australian outback ("Royal Hotel"), now into a classy and visually pleasing horror mystery (and pretty well placed in some stylish musical theatre).
The first clue was Dianne Wiest's voice, then the name Roman, then... bingo!.. the name Castevet.
I was thinking: is this another story in the same building, is it a remake? Though I was so impressed by everything presented, I didn't really mind too much if they decided to make an alternate telling of the Rosemary's Baby story, but I was really hoping it was somehow a connected tale rather than a modern replacement. On one hand, that would be much better than the ill advised scene for scene Gus Van Sant "Psycho" remake (lest we forget), but the second Terri sat on the window ledge I was thrilled beyond belief to realize it was a prequel the whole time. One of the rare occasions the death of the main character feels welcomed, rather than a villain.
This is also the third movie with almost the same plot in the last two years. Third time's a charm.
Final Girl: Halloween (2024)
Inexperience is no excuse for writing this bad.
When you take into consideration the budgetary constraints, including the inability to afford professional casting, you can pretty much tell when you are getting an amateur writer or filmmaker who has a noticeable amount of promise or possibilty, and when you know for certain that they are headed nowhere. That is when it is abundantly clear those at the helm of the more awful low budget creations have no skill in presenting believable or passable scenarios, and are unable to recreate any observations in human behavior, how people act and talk in any given situation, whether dramatic, comedic or genre heightened.
This is one of the latter. There is a concept known as "verimilisitude", which is the idea that it doesn't matter if your concept is set in hyper reality, in outer space, or in a child's animation, if you don't buy into a personality or situation in order to suspend your disbelief, the entire effort is an abject failure. From filmmakers, to stand up comics and other storytellers, this is an essential facet of a creative arsenal.
There is just no reason any filmmaker should have such bad plotting, characterization and dialogue as this. I can forgive bad or amateurish acting, but maybe the issue is they have nothing to work from.
Back to Black (2024)
The Best Music Biopic. Ever.
Now, I've seen just about every music biopic made (Lady Sings The Blues, Bird, The Coal Miner's Daughter, Bound For Glory, Ray, Walk The Line, The Buddy Holly Story, La Bamba, Selena, Bohemian Rhapsody, Shine, Control, What's Love Got To Do With It, La Vie En Rose, Backbeat, several Elvis movies etc., plus some fictional and based on real artist movies like all versions of A Star Is Born, 8 Mile, Velvet Goldmine, The Jazz Singer, Stardust, The Rose...) but this one, in my opinion, is the absolute elite best (if not quite depressing on many levels).
Unlike most of its type, we never at any point feel like we're going through a checklist of most well known events and stages of a life, but a truly immersive & involving fly-on-the-wall drama, with wall to wall excellent casting, acting, writing and stunning music (both songs and score).
.. And a fantastic cinematic work on every level.
In no part of her wikipedia bio is Marisa Abela listed as a singer but simply as an actress.. I think that needs a serious update! I mean, she really could take this Amy show on the road as a second career.
She not only excels musically, but she truly embodies Amy Winehouse thoroughly.
Borderlands (2024)
Forgettable Noisy Mess.
I generally like crazy movies others refer to as "dumpster fires"...
But those are generally aided by inventive, ingenious plot and filmmaking devices, and more often than not, characters and performances that will be forever tattooed onto your psyche.
This basically squanders any of that potential, making what should be utter pandemonium play with stunning mediocrity.
No good dialogue, no good acting, even from Blanchett, because there's nothing to work off.
Ariana Greenblatt is the only standout in this colourful but dull, messy affair, giving much more energy to her performance than the script is worth.
Kevin Hart, who generally would be a major asset to anything even slightly comical, feels pretty much absent here.
If you want this kind of chaos to work, you really need your cast to ham it all the way up. Ariana & Gina Gershon seem the only ones up to the task while everyone else seems to be reading directly from the page.
As for Eli Roth, well, some filmmakers should really just stay in their lane.
The Coven (2022)
Almost A Horror Classic.
The first half of this film, though containing some brilliantly effective eerie score and captivating cinematography, seems a pretty typical addition to a pre-existing demonic cult subgenre, complete with antler headgear seen in many of its kind over the last decade or so.
The later part boasts some of the most terrifying dark and vivid goth-centric imagery depicting demonic ritual ever committed to film, leaving many of its predecessors redundant.
With some tweaking to the earlier section, this could well have been the modern answer to Rosemary's baby.
Nightmares wish they could conjure the level of pure
darkness reached here.
Longlegs (2024)
Terrifying, mildly disappointing.
Much of this incredibly creepy piece of horror cinema is irrefutably chilling, especially the role Nicolas Cage was yet again born to play, fitting into his screen stealing rogues gallery through the years.
At almost every single moment of this film I was checking every corner of the screen, waiting at any heartbeat to be launched out from my socks through the ceiling with terror. The fact that much of that is unmet isn't necessarily wasted potential but maybe just the filmmaker's refusal to conform to expected norms like "jump scares" every so often.
What is mildly disappointing is that the story leads in such a fascinating, mind boggling dark alley journey, that the explanation of simply "Satan" seems pretty simplistic and quite frankly takes something away from the whole picture.
There are films with supernatural twists that are thrilling and unforgettable, others where it feels just like a cop-out from proper storytelling. This feels somewhere in the middle.
Kiernan Shipka's unrecognizable turn here is pretty stunning and unsettling also.
I'm not forgetting Maika Monroe, though, it's her performance which really helps sell the fear we as an audience experience throughout the film.
Trap (2024)
Sabotaged by a stupid final act.
The most part of this film is an engaging, involving ride where you find yourself both following and involuntarily rooting for the escape of a mass murderer, invested in his clever ruses and evasions, but simultaneously hoping someone cottons onto him and helps bring him to justice.
This has the feel of some 70's classic real time thrillers like Two-Minute Warning, Black Sunday or even 90's entries like Snake Eyes.
What brings this whole affair crashing down is a ridiculous ending, where after just having tased an unrelenting psychopathic serial killer countless times, they're just gonna let him not only tinker with a contraption with possible hidden weapons, but also embrace his daughter (who would make a pretty handy getaway hostage).
They wouldn't even let a shoplifter attempt any of those shenanigans upon arrest. M. N. S. Should really know better at this point.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
Didn't I already see this movie?
If you're looking for a slasher film for a night of scares, there are many to choose from, and the original Strangers movie was pretty damn creepy.
As far as the masked killer subgenre goes, it's one of the more effective ones. The casting didn't hurt either.
This has many of those same ingredients, but just isn't as good on any of those points, though the cabin in the woods setting lends more to the feeling of isolated strandedness of the main duo.
The second Strangers movie, while not up to the quality of the original, brought other stuff with it, and wasn't just a retread.
This one is virtually a remake of the original, complete with the female at the door looking for a friend, most everything else in between and pretty much the same third act, including "because you're here".
If it was intended as a remake or reboot, there has to be a reason for it... new ideas or interesting left turns. This is basically for the less fussy who just want the same thing they're familiar with.
I can also be guilty of that need for a quickie junk food thrill too.
Those who haven't watched the original will probably enjoy it a lot more, but one would really expect much greater things from the director of "The Long Kiss Goodnight".
Civil War (2024)
A terrifying glimpse of a possible future.
From the very first frame, this film instantly immerses you into a living nightmare, made that much more chilling by it's utter feasibility, in that, depending on certain outcomes, all of this is very possibly on the cards.
Engineered as an allegorical parable in the form of a semi science-fictional thriller, it feels more like a prediction, and ever more prescient than other similar cinematic imaginings.
The eerily effective use of music choice and score only enhances its unsettling fever dream effect to give a very real world Twilight Zone feeling.
Some may argue the main group focused on are a little outside of the core ground zero of the violence, but that is key to the realism as most watching this film would in reality experience it with much less level of involvement.
The Fall Guy (2024)
Don't Believe The Hype.
Much kudos has to be given to the constantly proven acting prowess of leads Blunt & Gosling.
They both manage here to bring believable emotion and gravity not even present in the script!..
As if much of the content leading up to each credible close-up has been edited out.
A script, might I remind you, penned by those who brought us the godawful Hobbs & Shaw.
A lightweight romantic thread through a cartoonish plot of cardboard villains laced with the usual crutch of characters using pop culture references as a comic device.
Yes there is some great visual action and impressive stunts, but the film as a whole has the dramatic weight, clever storytelling and brilliant comedy found in fare like Crocodile Dundee 3.
That is not a compliment.
Blunt & Gosling will easily survive this minor blemish in their filmographies so...
If this film is so great as people claim it is, I challenge them to sit through it again!
I mean, within the first couple of minutes a film set supervisor is threatening crew members mortal harm and calling them 'pigs'...
Does that really ring true in today's social or political climate, at least that he would remain employed or unlitigated very shortly after?
The trailer at the end of the film may be an intentional reference to Tropic Thunder, but it feels more like a blatant knock-off.
Abigail (2024)
Pretty good...
This nicely casted piece of horror entertainment is pretty effective on most levels, and nicely acted by a talented array of mostly recognizable faces.
There are subtle nods to films like Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects, From Dusk Till Dawn that are not too obvious to the casual viewer, which is fine, seeing as many great filmmakers "borrow" moments from other sources (most self-admittedly: Tarantino).
It's very bloody, gory to the point of being impactful without turning your stomach excessively.
The vampire makeup and effects are much better than many I have seen in the last couple of decades.
If you had no previous knowledge of this film's synopsis, it's first real major twist is quite skillfully made unpredicted until it's reveal.
My only qualm here is that the initial kills are so effortlessly and stealthily "executed", it seems a stretch that the remaining cast would not be quickly dispensed with at the same level of ease.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Yawnorama.
If your chief interests in the medium of film are expensive CGI effects, the subject matter involved or the existing lore of a created world or universe, this wafer-thin-scripted borefest may be more in your field of interest than mine.
When new entries in decades old franchises, or in many cases, remakes are generated, what some involved fail to comprehend is they are sorely lacking the core ingredients which made the original pieces so great in the first place.
In the case of the original Ghostbusters: a fun, fast-moving romp filled with memorable quips, one-liners, scares and great, well written, charismatic characters.
As an experiment, watch the original film again, then immediately watch this endless dullness after and you will see a contrast between quality and whatever level of entertainment this passes at.
I mean, Paul Rudd's always fun, but here he looks almost as bored as I was, struggling to complete the viewing it required of me to make this an informed, if scathing assessment.
Some of the later effects were okay...
This might seem an unnecessary use of my time to have typed this unpleasantness, but...
I want to enjoy any film I spend my time watching, especially stuff related to that which I love, I'm just so tired of the attitude that mere association to greatness is enough.
The original cast members are wasted too.
Immaculate (2024)
A clever little gem.
This film has the quiet, stylish, atmospheric mood of an earlier Del Toro or other Latin or European entry in a blend of subgenres that recall Rosemary's Baby or The Godsend.
Had this been of the subtitled variety, I have zero doubt it would have been critically praised, or at least well received at a respectable level.
This nice little blend of horror and science fiction seems to have been unfairly targeted in a bizarre, shallow, disgraceful beauty-shaming campaign lately against Sydney Sweeney..
.. which is in effect ugly-shaming or diminishing the talent of other female actors of any perceived standard of appearance.
What's more.. Sweeney displays a moody, haunting, cinema-centric aura and demeanor that lends perfectly to this and other films in her catalogue, so the whole affair is puzzling.
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
BELIEVE The Hype
For all the promotion and fuss surrounding various "innovative" new horror fare, entries in sub-genres hailed as the "new" this or that, not to mention excessively drooled-over franchises, remakes, sequels....
This one leaves most of those well and truly in the dust.
Possibly the most frightening and eerily effective of its kind (and in horror generally), since The Exorcist.
Many films have tried and flirted closely towards this kind of level of unsettling horror but have been quite a slight unsatisfying fix.
This delivers as promised unlike any other in recent years I can recall.
Sure.. it's part of an existing theme of movies, but it really hits the spot others can't reach.
Cronenberg fans should enjoy this one too.
Amsterdamned (1988)
Unintentional comedy, followed by adrenaline-fueled excitement!
For the first two thirds of this movie, the novel plotting is somewhat marred by the highly amusing misuse of the English language and embarrassing attempts at American cop movie imitation dialogue.
Though the Dutch are supposedly fluent in English, they really should have filmed it in Dutch, then maybe released a dubbed version for those of us too lazy to read subtitles.
Apart from that, it's quite interesting in many ways, though there are some silly moments, such as the main character's nonchalant response to his daughter aiming a loaded gun at his head (..while he's in the bath!!)
Some of these points may tempt some viewers to discontinue watching, which would be a mistake, because the later portion of this film features possibly the greatest, most thrilling speed boat chase in cinema history!
Thanksgiving (2023)
A little off the top, please.
You hear the term 'jump scares' thrown about a lot. This movie had me literally leaping out of my seat numerous times, not to mention taking names in vain and flinching involuntarily.
Eli Roth has served up a long form version of the
memorable trailer he provided for the Rodriquez/Tarantino Grindhouse double feature with mixed results.
When it makes with the horror, scares and general gruesome goings on it really works.
A good 20 minutes early in the film is pretty slow going, though It kind of makes sense why it's there: build a world to familiarize yourself with the community & its characters to raise the jeopardy and generate a well of suspects.
The dialogue in this portion isn't necessarily corny or unrealistic, it's just kind of bland & inconsequential. Though I know Roth is contributing an entry into a genre not known for it's subtlety or hyper realism, there have been many sale stampedes that have not resulted in any such carnage as this.
The Puppetman (2023)
Young scriptwriters take note.
Refreshing and impressively written entry in the urban myth genre.
The dialogue has a naturalistic feel that really helps sell the narrative, proving that when you are immersed into an environment of believable characters, you can suspend disbelief and be effectively unnerved by what are essentially highly unlikely scenarios.
There are definite tropes here, but it doesn't feel like it's going through the checklist.
This film and its script never tries to be trendy, clever, pompous or pretentious.
It doesn't go for gimmicky jump scares or try to hit quotas other films go for to appease attention deficient audiences. It's not the most terrifying movie in existence, but fans of older, slow burning fare should definitely check it out.
Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
MEGA-DULL
This feels more like a rejected TV pilot than a movie. The dialogue, acting, pacing and general story are all a generic bore. The title creature is barely in the film at all! The last 5 or 10 minutes are really the only portion worth watching, and even then, it's hardly worth the wait, (though if the rest of the film was better, it would add to its impact or entertainment value).
Jason Statham simply has no juicy writing to chew on, so apart from some over the top action sequences, he's pretty much wasted.
Billed as a comedy, there's no real trace of any humour, apart from the occasional groanworthy remark.
The villains are strictly cardboard too.
Clown Nightmare (2019)
UNDER the barrell.
This unbelievable life-wasting exercise seems to have been concocted by individuals who should not be allowed a pair of scissors.
I understand the appeal to some of the "so bad it's good" experience...
For me that's Troma (even if it is mostly on purpose).
This one barely measures on any kind of meter whatsoever. Every 'actor' seems freshly revived from a deep comatose state. I can't really be bothered to delve into any other aspect of this apparent prank, other than to say, if you're looking for a wacky intergalactic clown movie, look no further than "Killer Klowns From Outer Space". It's goofy as hell... and scary!
Scream VI (2023)
An improvement on the last one.
This film manages to be quite effective in the making you jump and clench department and at times lean forward in tension, and the young cast you can tell are on the rise, especially lately Jenna Ortega...
yet...
There's still that overly self aware fourth wall bending thing where they don't just talk about horror tropes, they're virtually telling us, the audience that they're in a film right now. It's a little bit more in fun this time so you could probably give it credit for injecting some meta humour into the proceedings whereas last time there was very little else at all to the dialogue and you expected them any minute to just turn to camera and lay out the plot in detail to us directly.
This feels more in the world of its characters this time so you can more easily be absorbed and invested in their lives and be in fear for their mortality.
Horror buffs who are aware of the thousands of films and various subgenres are pretty tired of characters spouting super limited knowledge of the most obvious handful of constantly referenced films, and the traditions or cliches you will find in any beginners guide, but I suppose they're just following the tropes the Scream films are known for.
The original makers, though were not just buffs, they wrote and directed many of the films of the golden era of slashers, and the characters talked about films to each other, never to the audience.
65 (2023)
A Serious Lack Of Tension Or Sense Of Danger.
This film had the potential of replacing the Jurassic Park franchise by placing its characters in the prehistoric era rather than an ill-advised and badly run facility.
What should have been a high tension cinematic thrill ride with immediate and relentless danger at every possible turn seems to be almost a breeze for these two, who seem to stroll through the most hazardous environment imaginable almost completely unscathed or even bothered by its vast assortment of giant carnivorous beings.
It's very occasional moments of peril are weak imitations of the aforementioned film series.
This film seems more interested in the bond between our main hero and the young girl who reminds him of a long lost daughter.
Quite dull considering its subject matter.
M3GAN (2022)
Updated review: I Was Right.
Original Jan 31 2023 Review: 6/10 stars:
Heading:
"Will improve in the absence of hype".
Yes, this film is impressive in its depiction of a creepy and rather convincing, eerily close-to-becoming-reality artificially intelligent doll...
Its only real drawback is that all its most impressive aspects are showcased in multiple previews, reviews and TV or online spots, leaving not much left to surprise the viewer. The storyline pretty much plays by beats that are not that difficult to predict. Still, this will be less an issue over time when all the relentless hype and spoiling dies down.
This has definite narrative similarities more to the Child's Play remake, rather than the original... with touches of Annabelle, Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and the many, mainly low-rent imitations) and also The Bad Seed.
This quite refreshingly avoids bloodthirsty gore effects in favour of unsettling tension and the well-executed blend of human performance, prosthetics, animatronics and voiceover acting that make up the M3GAN character on screen.
It's the eyes that seem to linger the most in the memory that leaves an impression to make this an effective little thriller.
Updated Review: Aug 29 2024: 8/10 stars.
Heading: "I Was Right."
Upon initial release of this film, it was heavily advertised, promoted, had overlong features and interviews, making the film's actual watching virtually redundant, which really didn't do it any favors and made it a pretty disappointing leftover crumbs experience.
Watching it again at this later stage, with enough distance, is another matter altogether.
This theme of sentient robot beings has been explored since Metropolis in 1927 in film and television, but this one (upon repeat viewing) is especially creepy, unsettling and justifiably worrying.
What originally (to me) felt like a pretty regular worst-case-scenario sci-fi subgenre addition, now has gained a terrifying horror edge I seemed to overlook the first time.
When mentioning "The Bad Seed" in the previous review, it's more apparent not only for M3GAN, but for Cady, who if teamed up as a willing accomplice, would not seem surprising.
The Menu (2022)
Short Cuts.
This movie gets high marks for its style & look, a nice creepy turn by Ralph Fiennes, and a fantastic, engaging, revelatory performance by Anya Taylor-Joy.
As for the story, well.. in all honesty, it seems (to me at least) that Mark Mylod wants his cake & eat it too (I only just realised what I did there).
He wants to deliver an allegorical but narrative driven thriller, but at the same time, skirt logical outcomes by presenting surreal twists that just don't make any sense at all.
This kind of storytelling has been masterfully executed by filmmakers like Luis Bunuel, Peter Greenaway and other auteurs, but somehow this doesn't quite fit that mould.
This feels more like it had the workings of a classy reitration of the film "The Last Supper", but takes short cuts across any narrative sense to arrive at moments that seem to have been deliberately shoehorned in because they were early artistic visions that Mylod, Reiss & Tracy just failed to connect logically to the story...
such as the fact that for some unexplained reason, the entire cast just all of a sudden give in to their fate, and passively endure immolation..
within minutes of all having tried desperately to claw their way out of there.
This tendency to just ignore sense in the guise of artistic license is not just somewhat pretentious but a little patronising.
All that said, this film feels like a blend of recent classy horror gems like Ready Or Not and the stylishly shocking Midsommar.
Glass Onion (2022)
The Special Sauce.
This is one of those gems I didn't know I loved until a good hour in, at which point I was overcome with a rush of excitement....
Niftyness. In spades.
I was thinking for about the first 20 minutes, that "this Is too random, gimmicky and needlessly odd", and not in a David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Coen Brothers kind of way, but in a "let's-seem-clever by having every character, utterance and action be eccentric" for purely pretentious pseudo-cryptic reasons.
Then as things started to form a cohesive
fuller view, knocking out all my former assumptions I then soon thought "okay, but this just isn't as filmic or cinematic as "Knives Out" which is a keeper that will stand the test of time..
Then... the sauce!!!!!!
That's when my mind leapt out from me and continued to get pounded into submission right to and including during the closing credits, with its accompanying music, which proves there is an ocean of difference between on-the-nose and perfection. I haven't been so excited to have had the rug completely pulled from under me since 'Last Night In Soho'.
Chef's kiss... with special sauce on it.