It’s the end of the world as we know it and Gerard Butler isn’t going to take it lying down. A planet killing comet is head for Earth and John’s family has been selected for relocation to a safe haven in Greenland. Unfortunately, it’s a little rough going and things don’t happen the easy way. […]
The Painted Bird (2019) Director – Václav Marhoul (Tobruk) Cast – Petr Kotlár, Udo Kier, Barry Pepper, Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands Plot – On a solo journey through Eastern Europe during World War 2, young Jewish boy Joska (Kotlar) comes across a range of characters all dealing with their own trials […]
Film Review – The Painted Bird (2019)
Shawn Linden’s “Hunter Hunter” wasn’t at all what I expected. Its crafty advertising sells a deep woods thriller about a wolf terrorizing a wilderness family. To be fair that is a big part of the movie. But as the film sets your eyes in one direction it then broadsides you with a story full of […]
REVIEW: “Hunter Hunter” (2020)
A BORING, FORMULAIC, AND FORGETFUL ENDEAVOR Actor Liam Neeson has definitely made a name for himself in Hollywood. The Northern Ireland actor has turned a fine career of being leading man, but (like many actors in Tinseltown) humbly began in either smaller feature films or in supporting roles with some recognizable rising acting talents, […]
A TIRESOME CHORE TO ENDURE Neil Marshall has certainly run the “cinematic” gambit; delving into a variety of positions in his filmmaking career. After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark at age eleven, Marshall was inspired to become a film director; producing home movies on a Super 8 mm film as well as attending […]
The Dig (2021) Director – Simon Stone (The Daughter) Cast – Ralph Fiennes, Carey Mulligan, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin Plot – The true story of the Sutton Hoo excavation that took place in England in the late 1930’s when land owner and widow Edith Pretty (Mulligan) and archaeologist Basil Brown (Fiennes) […]
Do you (somehow, in this day and time) feel happy, joyful and just wish to be down? Have you ever wondered how it would feel like to experience the war through child’s eyes, and to see many horrors, some of which, you didn’t want, or didn’t even think of seeing, happening to said child? Well, […]
The Painted Bird (2019) Review – War Is Hell, European Version
I am not going to lie, yesterday I had no idea this movie existed or what was it about. But, as soon as I saw the name Denis Villeneuve, I knew I needed to watch this (without even knowing this is his feature movie debut!) just to see how the director behind movies like Prisoners […]
August 32nd on Earth (1998) Review – Car Crash, Model and Desert
I realise this might be slightly controversial view, based on what I have read about this movie right after seeing it, but… I need to say what I feel. The ending didn’t work for me the way it (apparently) worked for most of the people on the Internet. Which slightly hinders my enjoyment of the […]
Ready or Not (2019) Review – All About That Ending
Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide. (Letterboxd) Masterfully shot […]
Work sucks. Home sucks. Life sucks. Val (Jerrod Carmichael) springs his best friend Kevin (Christopher Abbott) from the psychiatric facility where he’s being held so they can commit suicide together. Kevin attempts it regularly, which is why he’s currently being held, and Val has recently begun to think that this is the only logical solution. […]
Sundance: On The Count of Three
Date Night dabbles in suburban marriage matters, police corruption, and the art of locking your front bumper to the front bumper of a New York taxi cab in the midst of a car chase. A crazy mixed bag in category and appeal, but with Steven Carell and Tina Fey doing the work, the result is […]
My Valentine’s Day Pick: Date Night (2010)
Writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford’s debut feature is as sober a treatment of the “date rape” drug experience as the cinema has ever shown us. “Test Pattern” captures the “how,” immerses us in the “now” and shows us the lives brought to a standstill by the experience and the soul-crushing systemic failures of the aftermath. What […]
Movie Review: A romance shaken by “date rape” — “Test Pattern”
A lot of thrillers begin with or feature a prison-bus break-out as a signature scene — “48 Hrs.” and “The Fugitive,” for instance. But here’s one that’s all about the break-out, or break-in depending on your point of view. “Below Zero (Bajocero)” is a simple, brutal and harrowing Spanish thriller about an assault on a […]
Netflixable? A prison bus thriller with a “Below Zero (Bajocero)” chill
Far from the best horror film, and far from the best slasher, there is something classically endearing about My Bloody Valentine.
Horrific Inquiry: MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)
It’d be hard to overstate just how likeable Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” movies. Cute cast, realistic (if affluent) situations, upbeat messaging and first love-affirming, precisely what a teen rom com should be. And if Netflix wants to wring the life out of the “franchise,” even that doesn’t ding that likability. The […]
Netflixable? “To All the Boys: Always and Forever”
“Yeah, I’ll do your little movie,” the pitch meeting ended, probably a short one, probably handled by phone. But the Oscar winning actor had one rider he insisted on in his contract. “I’ll do it so long as I don’t have to talk.” Say this for the quixotic career of Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winner, […]
Movie Review: Let’s turn Nic Cage loose in “Willy’s Wonderland”
DANIEL KALUUYA as Chairman Fred Hampton, ASHTON SANDERS as Jimmy Palmer, ALGEE SMITH as Jake Winters, DOMINIQUE THORNE as Judy Harmon and LAKEITH STANFIELD as Bill O’Neal in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. A film is always a harrowing watch when based on a real-life person […]
MMT Quick Review of JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
A part of me would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the crazy idea for “Spontaneous” was pitched to the studio heads. “It’s an adaptation of a book about high school students who inexplicably begin exploding in class. And I mean literally blowing up, spraying blood all over their classmates […]
Really bad decisions and horror movies go together like peanut butter and jelly. There are countless examples: reading the blood-inked Necronomicon, attempting to tame a zombie, reaching down to pull the mask off a downed serial killer, saying Candyman’s name five times to a mirror. In the upcoming “The Devil Below” a group of amateur […]
First Glance: “The Devil Below”