Pity the fools who can’t appreciate the magnificent mayhem of “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” the screaming, bustierre-busting glories of Salma Unleashed. Whatever middling “charms” the carnage-packed caper “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” wrung out of pairing up Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson in 2017, casting Salma Hayek seriously ups the comic ante in this slaughterhouse of […]
Movie Review: “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard”
Full disclosure: I was never a part of the original “Space Jam” craze. I was 25-years-old when the movie came out in 1996 and never felt inclined to see it during its initial release. I watched it later (at least most of it) and nothing about it has stuck with me. I say that to […]
First Glance: “Space Jam: A New Legacy”
This recently restored film is an interesting look at George Romero and a controversial subject. The Amusement Park (1973) was a discarded film, originally created by Romero as a commission work for the Lutheran Service Society in Pittsburg, but not widely used and thought lost. The original 16mm reels were sitting in Romero’s basement aka […]
One Day YOU will be old – The Amusement Park review #georgeromero
It’s worth remembering that the script for Groundhog Day was, like, way darker than the final movie; the idea of a day endlessly repeating, and how that might feel for those trapped within it, has got legs. Remakes and sequels haven’t followed, and that’s a good thing, but the potential mileage is obvious, and it […]
Where were you in 2006? Back in the days of flip-phones and Netscape, you probably couldn’t have it much worse than Michael (Ozark’s Charlie Tahan). He’s working as a campus bus driver, ferrying boozed and drugged up students around a freezing Rochester New York, with the attendant vomit-stains and fractured feelings about life that predictably […]
A Quiet Place was perhaps the pinnacle of the sensory deprivation horror of the late 2010s – the last of a plethora of films that tried to reinvest the multiplex with a new sensory immediacy by focusing on characters who had one or many senses disabled. That movement didn’t necessarily feel exhausted by A Quiet […]
Krasinski: A Quiet Place Part II (2021)
Needless to say my expectations for the new Christian Petzold film were through the roof. The German filmmaker’s last two movies, 2014’s “Phoenix” and 2018’s “Transit”, are both snugly among my favorites from the last decade. His latest “Undine” has finally come to the States courtesy of IFC Films. And while it might not pack […]
Title – Dreamland (2019) Director – Miles Joris-Peyrafitte (As You Are) Cast – Margot Robbie, Finn Cole, Garrett Hedlund, Travis Fimmel Plot – During the heat of the Great Depression, lonely Texan teenager Eugene Evans (Cole) strikes up a friendship with on the run bank robber Allison Wells (Robbie) as the two hatch a plan […]
Film Review – Dreamland (2019)
For some reason, I’m getting requests to review super-hero movies, even though it’s hardly an area of expertise. There are good ones, The Dark Night, Thor: Ragnorok, Iron Man 3. But most of them have a written-by-committee feel; David Mamet described a summer blockbuster movie as being like a themed ‘pageant’, and there’s generally little […]
Ok, who hasn’t dreamed dark thoughts about some social media troll who’s made disgusting, cruel or hateful comments about something you’ve said, shared or posted? No one, right? There’s something very satisfying about the thought that some thinks-he-or-she-is-anonymous online troll realizing, with shock, that they aren’t protected from their ugly, sometimes violent opinions by “anonymity” […]
Movie Review: “The Columnist” has a REAL problem with hate mail
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8.5 out of 10. This happens to be a great film, yet also an action film, yet also with a deep, dark message. How? In the modern age, it’s sad that all of those are basically exclusive from one another. But, back in the early seventies, The French Connection was just about ready […]
The Awesome Bleakness Of The French Connection
Something really strange happened to me while I was watching “Cruella,” the latest animation to live action Disney prequel/remake. Disappointed by Disney’s recent installments in their series of nostalgia cash grabs and not impressed with the trailers for this one, I was fully prepared for “Cruella” to not be a good time. But less than […]
It’s been a minute since Angelina Jolie has starred in a proper adult action movie- in fact, her last one was “The Tourist” in 2010 (god, remember “The Tourist“?). But Jolie is back at it, soon to appear in Marvel’s “The Eternals,” and currently starring in writer/director Taylor Sheridan’s “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” But […]
Review: “Those Who Wish Me Dead”
Not everyone remembers that “Undine” or Ondine is a name from mythology, a water nymph of “The Little Mermaid” variety — one with a great gravitas attached to her love life. With or without that knowledge, the opening “break-up” scene in Christian Petzold’s German fantasy based on that myth is dark and intense. Johannes (Jacob […]
Movie Review: A dark romantic fantasy, in and out of the water — “Undine”
It’s great seeing Eric Bana not just getting a leading role, but getting a really meaty one in a movie that lets him show why he’s such an underrated actor. “The Dry”, an Australian thriller from director Robert Connolly, marks Bana’s first feature film appearance since 2017. Written by Connolly and Harry Cripps, it’s an […]
Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi wrote “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common man, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” The thrust of that quote forms the backbone of Luke Holland’s engrossing new Holocaust documentary “Final Account”. In it Holland […]
REVIEW: “Final Account” (2021)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8 out of 10. When I first started this blog, one of my main aims was to complete what many believe to be the Big Three: The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho and The Shining. So far, it’s two out of three. But only three psychological horrors really fails to whet the appetite, […]
Misery: A Love Letter To Annie Wilkes
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8 out of 10. It’s been interesting that while writing all of these reviews, I’ve been surprised how many have been adapted from books: the likes of Misery, Marathon Man, M*A*S*H and Manhunter. Maybe it’s just because they begin with M, but in order to try and break the funk, I’ve gone for […]
The Shining: The Perfect Lockdown Viewing?
Catherine Clare… trades life in 1980s Manhattan for a remote home in the tiny hamlet of Chosen, New York … She soon comes to sense a sinister darkness lurking both in the walls of the ramshackle property—and in her marriage (Letterboxd) In its dialogue, editing, and overall presentation it’s a bit clunky and contrived; the […]
A husband and father of four contemplates killing his wife and her lover in this atmospheric and brooding drama.