Sometimes a movie’s title says it all. That’s definitely the case with “Godzilla vs. Kong”, the fourth film in Legendary Entertainment’s MonsterVerse following two “Godzilla” movies and 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island”. It should go without saying, but you don’t enter into something called “Godzilla vs. Kong” with expectations of an emotionally layered and deeply nuanced […]
REVIEW: “Godzilla vs Kong” (2021)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Director – Milos Forman (Man On the Moon) Cast – Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Douriff, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd Plot – Troublemaker and criminal R.P McMurphy (Nicholson) is transported to a mental facility run by Nurse Ratched (Fletcher) where he is to be evaluated […]
Amazon Prime Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne Jarred Harris Suspense, Fantasy, Drama A serial killer is loose in Carnival Row, and the government turns a blind eye (as always) to lower class citizens. The human Rycroft Philostrate (bloom) is a detective or P.I. looking into the deaths of some fae […]
Young love is tested by illness and honesty issues in “Caught by a Wave,” a scenic Italian romance set against a sailing backdrop. The leads are pretty and the locales romantic, but the scenario is generic and the pacing funereal in this dry-eyed weeper of rehab and regattas. Sailing camp on the isle of Favignana […]
Netflixable? Teen Italians, in love and facing tragedy — “Caught by a Wave”
THE DEVIL READS SALINGER The literary world is filled with plenty of famous authors that have gone on to cultivate a mass following with their works; becoming classic within their own right and touching the lives of many individuals and many generations around the world. Of course, the inane quirks and obscure facts are […]
A husband’s violent reaction becomes the talk of the neighborhood when he catches his cheating wife in the act. I noticed this film was on Prime and decided to watch it. Also the premise sounded interesting. This film marked the film debut of Beulah Bondi. This film is a bit of a curio as although […]
“Better Days” is a searing indictment of bullying culture and China’s insanely intense college admissions system, all tucked into a sadly compelling romantic thriller. The added-attention of an Oscar nomination gives a welcome boost to a movie much of the world missed in late 2019, but one well worth enduring and embracing. “Enduring” because Derek […]
Movie Review: Bullying as a romantic thriller — China’s Oscar contender “Better Days”
Destiny is a funny thing. When things go from bad to worse, fate plays a trick to change everything in an unthinkable way, to make things happen for the right people at the right time. Emma (Clarisse Albrecht), an Afropean woman, got herself into legal trouble when she was caught transporting drugs in the airport […]
Accidents happen on the road. Whether it’s the result of a crash, fight, or just a dead car battery. But what can we do to come out of such a situation? Do we just call for help or try to be proactive and fix the situation by ourselves? It’s hot weather conditions and Safa (Safa […]
SXSW 2021: “Are You Still There?”
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. In a very strict culture, two people who love each other must get married first before they are allowed to get close to each other. If intimacy occurs before marriage, it can be punishable with something as harsh as a death sentence. Nazli and Emre, escaping their homes, hope […]
Two siblings and three of their friends en route to visit their grandfather’s grave in Texas end up falling victim to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths and must survive the terrors of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his family. This is one of those cornerstones of horror that you’re always aware of even if you’ve never […]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Not everyone’s going to have an easy life. So this is about a young man (Tom Holland). He goes from college dropout to Army medic, and he serves two years in the Iraq war. He has PTSD when he returns home, which leads to drug addiction. This is an expensive habit to maintain, so he […]
Robbing Banks with PTSD – Cherry (2021)
If Hollywood is going to give screenwriting Oscar nominations to “Borat” movies, brace yourself for pranks, pranks and more pranks pictures. “Bad Trip” is more at the “Bad Grandpa” with Johnny Knoxville end of the practical joke pictures spectrum. A little edge, a few confrontations with angry rural America, waaaay too many bodily function/bodily fluid […]
Netflixable? A “Bad Trip” that goes a prank or two too far
It may be tempting to write “#Alive” off as just another zombie movie. In a way that’s what it is. This South Korean survival thriller from director and co-writer Cho Il-hyung doesn’t bring anything particularly new and it certainly doesn’t reinvent the horror sub-genre. At the same time, it’s hard not to enjoy its nimble […]
“Six Minutes to Midnight” is the sort of high gloss “programmer” Hollywood and Pinewood (and Shepperton, etc.) used to turn out by the dozens. The plot has Nazis, spies, action and preposterous coincidences and improbabilities, a “talks too much” villain, cheap thrills and sentimental sop. But thanks to a game cast and a clever and […]
Movie Review: On the eve of war, it’s “Six Minutes to Midnight”
Hey everyone! After a rough start to the South by Southwest Film Festival Day 2 proved to be much better. In fact, I liked all 6 films I watched today to one degree or another. Hooray! So let’s get started with the recaps! I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) I have to say COVID is proving […]
SXSW Day 2 Log (I’m Fine, Twyla Moves, US vs Reality Winner, Here Before, Tom Petty, Recovery)
Hey everyone! Today begins the first day of the South by Southwest Film Festival of SXSW. This is my first year attending the festival and of course I attended virtually this year. Hopefully next year I can go down to Austin and attend in person (which is something I was planning to do last year […]
SXSW Day 1 Log (Kid Candidate, Introducing Selma, Islands,Demi Lovato, Hysterical, The Lost Sons)
Sound or the lack of it is an under-appreciated element of cinema, so much so that films that pay extra attention to it stand out. The Oscar-nominated “Sound of Metal” is wholly conceived around loud noise and learning to live in silent deafness. The filmmakers behind “Rose Plays Julie” take care to use muffled sound, […]
Movie Review: “Rose Plays Julie”
“The Courier” is an engrossing espionage thriller set, as so many of them are, at that one point when the Cold War seemed most likely to turn nuclear hot. Well-acted and early ’60s period perfect, about the worst you can say about it is that it’s a washed-out copy of “Bridge of Spies,” which is […]
Movie Review: “The Courier” plays his part in Preventing WWIII
A young woman (Lene Kqiku) awakes drugged and restrained in a strange house, but her captor may be more than he appears. I encountered this short film on Amazon Prime. The premise sounded interesting and with a runtime of only 7.5 I was intrigued. It does a good job of giving the film an undercurrent […]