Several months ago we got an incredible cool teaser for “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”, the follow-up to 2018’s critically panned but big box office success “Venom”. The film is part of the strange symbiotic (see what I did there) relationship between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios. The Venom movies are not part of the […]
First Glance: “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”
Title – Baby Done (2020) Director – Curtis Vowell (Fantail) Cast – Rose Matafeo, Matthew Lewis, Emily Barclay, Rachel House Plot – Young New Zealand based couple Zoe (Matafeo) and Tim (Lewis) find themselves unexpectedly expecting and the two find themselves at odds with how their lives will now be lived with Zoe keen to […]
Film Review – Baby Done (2020)
Jupiter’s Legacy premieres May 7 on Netflix. By Chris Flanagan Superheroes and comic book adaptations are everywhere. And Netflix is no stranger to greenlighting known properties that have a proven track record with literary fans into marquee tent poles that are required bingeing from the streaming giant. The Umbrella Academy, The Old Guard, Lucifer, and […]
Jupiter’s Legacy: Season 1 – Review
Last night, fully intent on just viewing one movie before going to bed, I decided to watch the 1977 film, Short Eyes. Why I thought that was a good idea, I’m not sure. Even though I didn’t know much about the film, I did know that it was a gritty prison drama that was written […]
Film Review: Short Eyes (dir by Robert M. Young)
Part of the purpose of the Blind Spot series is to challenge myself to watch classic films outside of my comfort zone. These are usually films I’ve heard great things about but have been hesitant to watch for one reason or another. 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde definitely fall into that description. A landmark of its […]
Blind Spot 65: Bonnie and Clyde
Well, isn’t this just adorable? “The Paper Tigers” is a martial arts action comedy filled with punch-ups, knock-outs, insults and one-liners. Well-acted, with actors who know how to throw a kick and land a punch — and a punchline — stuntman and editor turned writer-director Quoc Bao Tran has made a debut feature that tells […]
Movie Review: EveryDaddy was “Kung Fu Fighting” — “The Paper Tigers”
When it comes to action stars Jason Statham just has “it”. I can’t clearly define what “it” is, but you know it when you see it. It’s a healthy mix of charisma, grit, and physicality. Since Statham’s leading man breakthrough in 2002’s “The Transporter”, he has shown over and over that his anti-hero brand is […]
Time: 92 minutes Age Rating: Torture & Sadistic Violence Cast: Tobin Bell as John Kramer Costas Mandylor as Detective Mark Hoffman Scott Patterson as Agent Peter Strahm Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck Julie Benz as Brit Meagan Good as Luba Gibbs Mark Rolston as Agent Dan Erickson Carlo Rota as Charles Director: David Hackl Although Jigsaw […]
The underfunding of Minari is hardly a controversy, but outside of a few Twitter threads, nobody is discussing it.
Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment Shortchanged MINARI
Imagine the nerds from “The Big Bang Theory” stumbling into the plot of “Taken,” or pretty much any Liam Neeson out-for-revenge thriller. Now imagine them Danish. That’s “Riders of Justice,” the dark, bloody, sweet and sometimes hilarious comic thriller from Anders Thomas Jensen. He scripted the Oscar-winning “In a Better World,” which had similar messaging […]
Movie Review: Danish, Dark, Bloody and…Sweet? “Riders of Justice”
An alienated teenager, Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret. I stumbled across this film while working my way through film decades on Prime. I tried to remain as unaware of this film as I possibly could because I felt […]
Quick Thoughts about Episode One – Star Wars: The Bad Batch is a welcome addition to the Star Wars animated world, and is refreshingly unique as it follows Clone Force 99, a group of defectively born, and battle-hardened clones throughout the post-Clone Wars universe. The official synopsis for the show is “Members of a unique […]
Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Episode One Review
Robert Mitchum was a high-mileage/hard-miles 57 when he took on Raymond Chandler’s iconic private eye Philip Marlowe in 1975’s “Farewell, My Lovely,” a character immortalized by Bogie in “The Big Sleep” in a story of that had been filmed twice before, in the film noir-mad 1940s. He wasn’t too old to take the part, but […]
Classic Film Review: Mitchum is Marlowe in Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975)
Throughout my many years of covering and reviewing movies I’ve been pretty vocal about my belief that Guy Pearce is (and for a long time has been) one of the most underrated and undervalued actors in the business today. He’s charismatic, incredibly diverse, and easily one of the industry’s busiest workers (he has FOUR films […]
REVIEW: “The Seventh Day” (2021)
Any Bond film was going to pale in comparison to Goldfinger, but even so Thunderball was a remarkably weak effort – and easily the weakest film in the Sean Connery canon. Neither as light on its feet as Goldfinger, nor as taut or propulsive, Thunderball mainly unfolds in the Bahamas, where Bond has to thwart […]
Embracing your inner badass. So this is about an everyday person (Bob Odenkirk). He’s an unremarkable family man, and he would not stand out in a crowd. On a night where his home is robbed, the dominos start falling which will lead to him going on a mayhem-filled spree. Now I was looking forward to […]
“The Sleepless” is drama and romance at its most elemental and charming — just two insomniacs, meeting and chatting on a long walk through the empty streets of Brooklyn at dawn. Sometimes cute, occasionally touching and generally charming, it won’t go down as one of the great “just a conversation” films. The dialogue doesn’t paint […]
Movie Review: “The Sleepless” and Lonely Strangers meet in Brooklyn’s Wee Hours
Truth be told, Christopher Walken has always worn his pants grandpa-high, his hats a little out-of-date. And he’s always grown a mean goatee, even in his silvery “legend of the cinema” years. So it’s no stretch thinking of him as a grandfatherly Saskatchewan canola farmer getting his back up when pushed around by Big Ag […]
Movie Review: Walken vs Monsanto, “Percy vs. Goliath”
During the war, a titled family object to their squadron leader son’s engagement to the daughter of a factory worker. This is a film I watched due to the desire to expand my repertoire of films. Amazon Prime certainly is the place to find the sorts of films people forget. It’s also quite an obscure […]
Not every story can move us one way or another. Not because we are senseless, heartless or indifferent towards others but because we think no problem is bigger than our own. Then why, one may ask, should I even bother knowing what happens in the rest of the world when my own is in scrambles? […]
Hot Docs 2021: “Writing with Fire”
