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Subservience (NR)
There’s a whole genre of stories about AI Homes or AI robots going rogue and causing harm. I’ve reviewed a ton of them because I’m a sucker for tech and horror. Combine the two and I’m interested.
This film is from Till Death director S.K. Dale. Megan Fox was in that one too. Subservience is the story of a humanoid home robot that can do your chores or even babysit your kids. In the case of this family of four, the wife needs a heart transplant so the husband feels they need some helping hands around the house while his wife is in the hospital awaiting a new heart.
Even though sexual shenanigans are sure to happen when the new home appliance looks like Megan Fox and wears her only clothes, a short dress, it was his young daughter that chose the Megan Fox model out of the extensive displays of male and female robots on offer. But even his wife thinks that’s a weak defense when the sexy family bot shows up at the hospital pushing the baby carriage for a visit.
If you’ve seen more than a handful of these types of movies you’ll know exactly where this is headed. It’s low budget and pulls from better movies like, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and M3gan, to name just two. The biggest flaw in the movie is that Megan Fox is a mediocre actress. I didn’t buy her as a household robot (no pun intended).
The husband is played by Italian actor Michael Marrone, who is covered in prison style tats, including on his hands and fingers. I mention this because Megan Fox has dozens of wacky tattoos and claimed early in her career that she would never cover them for any director. But you can’t have tattoos and play a household robot, unless you just happen to sport one that says “Samsung.” So she had to cover hers up with makeup and work with a costar that’s covered in tats. That must’ve been an interesting dynamic on the set.
For those that enjoy the exploration of humanoid robots with AI smarts and industrial machine strength, if you’re a Netflix subscriber, the Russian TV series Better Than Us stars the best, most believable female household robot actress ever, by a mile (played by Paulina Andreeva). It’s a mighty engaging series with plenty of action and intricate storyline. Even the trailer for that series is engaging.
Having watched Better Than Us years ago, Subservience is pitiful by comparison.
– Wait for HBO
Strange Darling (R)
I had high hopes for Strange Darling. Then the lights went down and the film started with a blurb on the screen that this serial killer case is based on a true story.
Strike one right out of gate. I wish Hollywood would lose that lame trope but I suspect a large portion of moviegoers actually believe those fake out lines.
This is a movie that wants to be super clever, telling a wild tale in 6 linear chapters but delivering the chapters out of order to keep us guessing about where it’s been as much as where it’s headed. Because of the random delivery the rug is pulled out from under us on several occasions because we’re not privy to information that happened in the earlier chapters we haven’t seen yet.
The story basically starts with a man picking up a woman and they sit in his car in front of a motel smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes are used as an acting crutch throughout the movie. He’s hoping to head up to the motel room with her and she’s stalling to make sure it’s the right thing to do. At one point she asks him flat out if he’s a serial killer.
Although it’s a US movie with American actors there are a lot of times where actress Willa Fitzgerald mumbles quietly while sitting in the car. We’re supposed to understand what she’s saying but unfortunately I could only understand about 30% of what she said. I thought it might have been a mic placement issue, but she mumbles lines throughout the movie that are basically unintelligible. This movie would definitely be better served on a TV where you could turn on the subtitles.
No doubt it’s a crazy story. Like a college-level script aping a Tarantino or Cohen Brothers film. But I never bought into it and I think the biggest flaw is that when you watch a Tarantino or Coen Brothers film there are always characters you actually like or at least sympathize with. I didn’t like either of the leading characters. I loathed both of them.
It was fun to see Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey again. But they had small parts. This one is a hard swing and a miss.
– AVOID!
Daddio (R)
This is a tough one to review. Though this was directed by a fledgling female director that leans into feminism, I gave it a chance because it stars Sean Penn. Love him or hate him he’s always been a great actor. He’s great in this story too. Totally believable as a salty New York City cabby.
Dakota Johnson is the woman who gets into his cab. Again, Dakota has her detractors too, but she’s well-cast here. The camera loves both of these actors shot mostly in close-ups. It was important to get the casting right. This will likely help silence the critics that say Dakota Johnson can’t act and may even erase some of the stink from her Madame Web film disaster.
We never leave the cab for the 1h 40m movie which makes it feel a bit like a play. (Note that the director was a playwright for most of her career.) The play-like feel might make habitual phone scrollers antsy, especially if viewing at home. For those that loved the HBO series, Taxicab Confessions this is like a long form version of that.
Over the long drive both characters slowly open up to each other about their lives. It’s interesting enough. Grittier than you think going in, but they are New Yorkers so perhaps the salty banter is legit.
What viewers will absolutely find unsettling is the sexting the woman receives on her iPhone during the drive. Anthony Weiner levels of texts, including a very graphic dick pic.
Again, per this director’s 2024 content thus far I wasn’t surprised. Men are generally overbearing pigs and mostly abusive in her world of filmmaking.
After many topics are covered, Sean Penn, the veteran cabbie figures out that she’s having an affair with a married man with young kids. The same man who loves to text her the most awful sexual texts you’ve ever seen (no judging). But over the long drive Penn levels with her (in the saltiest of NY language) the various ways that her toxic relationship with this married man will end badly.
The back and forth banter is generally smart and intriguing. Enough that you’ll (likely) stick with it even if you’re a bit shocked at the raw content.
She just arrived at JFK Airport after a two-week visit with her sister. That information is pertinent to her ongoing touching story. What’s not pertinent to the story is when she describes her sister as being in a queer relationship with another woman. So why does she reveal that when it has zero bearing on the story whatsoever? Because it’s a prerequisite to include queer characters to get a film green lit in 2024, even if we never actually see the queer characters onscreen. So the required box got checked.
In another scene the cabbie suddenly says he has the “piss like a racehorse.” As he reaches for an empty soda bottle to pee into it from the front seat the woman scolds him and tells him not to do that in front of her. So he leaves the cab to do it.
Why include a scene like that in a Hollywood movie? Because she’s a feminist storyteller who believes all men are pigs and need to be trained by women how to behave in a civilized society. How many lifetimes would you have to live to find yourself in a cab where the cabby suddenly decides he has to piss in a bottle in front of you? What planet does this writer/director live on?
Though the frank conversation in the cab runs hot and cold, the raw truth he’s telling her (from the male perspective, two divorces and his wisdom of many, many years driving a cab) seems to sink in. She knows he’s right. We do too.
Then there’s a final text message in the back of that cab that changes the entire tone of the film and reminds you – Directed by a woman.
It’s is a tough call. Just as with this director’s few other green lit recent productions, if you’re a woman, rent it. Perhaps it’s right up your alley. If you’re a guy, it’s worth a rental only if you’re a fan of Sean Penn’s acting. He delivers. He’s the sane one in the cab.
– Maybe – Wait for Rental
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (R)
Kevin Costner’s latest western will remind you of Dances With Wolves. Both movies even share the same 3 hour runtime. In a nutshell, if you really enjoyed Dances With Wolves you owe it to yourself to see this 1st of (maybe) 3 parts of Horizon. The movie did poorly at the box office so the jury is out on its total completion. It’s now on streaming so there’s hope that it will recoup some of its production costs. Part 2 is completed, so we’ll at least get to see that.
This release covers multiple stories going on at the same time and Costner doesn’t rush any of it. This is the biggest gripe among those that gave the film a thumbs down. Too many people have lost the patience to sit still and digest incredibly deep stories with threads that will obviously come together at some point. This film belongs in the era back when people would gladly sit still in a theater and enjoy extended movies directed by people who were passionate about the stories they wanted to tell. Movies like The Godfather, Scarface, Gone with the Wind, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and of course Dances With Wolves. All 3+ hours long.
We didn’t use to mind. At one time we actually enjoyed sagas like that and felt like we got our money’s worth.
Horizon, at least this part 1, doesn’t sugarcoat history. The Indians are seen as savage killers in some scenes and well-meaning in others. The white folks are seen as having both good and bad sides as well. I chose the two thumbnails above to best illustrate this strong theme, one showing a perfectly cast villain and the other illustrating the soft side of the white people settling in America. This is a deep movie that will hold your attention if you still have that passion for movies that we all had decades ago. It never played in my area but I wish I had seen this in a theater.
– See it on the Big Screen
Catching Dust (NR)
The film opens with a man carrying a rifle as he walks toward a trailer in the middle of nowhere at dusk. He opens the door and seconds later we see the flash as he fires his gun.
Then the film takes us back in time one week and we watch his abusive relationship with his wife. We watch him verbally abuse her for days on end.
What fun.
Then out of nowhere, a couple from New York City drops their high-end trailer home “next-door” to the abusive couple’s dilapidated trailer in this secluded communal area.
Turns out this NYC couple has deep rooted marital problems of their own.
Double the fun?
So basically we’re watching two dysfunctional couples for the entire 90 minute movie. It’s well acted but first time writer/director Stuart Gatt delivers a story that’s difficult to watch and overly confusing, including the ending. We just don’t understand why the characters do the things they do.
We know it’s possible to make a good (enjoyable) movie about an abusive relationship. Sleeping with the Enemy starring Julia Roberts is a great example. In that film we aren’t watching the abuse for extended periods of time. It’s not necessary to get the point across. Instead, Sleeping with the Enemy explored the woman’s new secret life after she escaped the rich abusive husband and then delivered the third act excitement once she was again confronted by him. That’s the kind of content people will pay to watch.
Unfortunately with Catching Dust, we spend the entire time witnessing constant marital abuse. For 90 minutes. Which is exactly as fun as you think that will be.
– AVOID!
Alien: Romulus (R)
The clever tagline for the the original Alien movie starring Sigourney Weaver was, “In space no one can hear you scream.” True enough.
But in this one, everything in space makes noise. Lots of noises when the camera is filming from our point of view – out in space. But that’s the least of this film’s problems.
In this Alien saga we have a handful of young people who decide to blast off in a spaceship from their ringed planet, like it’s just another Thursday, to board a dead Alien ship that was accidentally captured by their planet’s gravity. Why this loose group of young adults would be the only ones curious about a ship suddenly orbiting their planet is anyone’s guess. And why would the authorities allow such an adventure? Who knows. Their huge spaceship also features windshield wipers similar to those on today’s cars. Don’t get me started.
So these young idiots stumble about in a dark ship that we all know harbors those terrible Alien monsters. If you’ve seen more than ten horror movies in your life featuring hapless idiot kids getting killed off one by one (I’ve reviewed a ton of them) this is exactly that same paint by numbers script, except this is set in space. Because Hollywood writers have totally lost any shred of creativity.
Every character does dumb things that will have you shaking your head. Of course we’ve got a guy talking too loudly to his girlfriend over a headset while he and the others are standing “quietly” in a room full of visible creatures that they are trying to walk past without being noticed. He’s not four-years-old. It’s so dumb you’re either laughing at this point or rooting for the monsters. All of the scares are lame jump scares with accompanying loud music or noises. Nothing original. Nothing scary.
Just as with all Hollywood horror movies from the 80’s onward, the men quickly die one by one and the women fight on until there’s only one left to save the day.
Then there’s the latest Hollywood messages.
Within 5 minutes of the movie we’re introduced to a humanoid robot (like in the original film). He’s the main black character (in his second film ever) who not only walks like he’s retarded, but the script demands he really is simpleminded and has a stutter to boot! Oh, the boxes Hollywood was able to check with this character! Hollywood doesn’t have to fear the repercussions of not hiring a real mentally retarded actor because he gets a software upgrade halfway into the film that makes him “normal,” which in 2024 means he’s “no longer special.”
In a true Hollywood eye-rolling moment this black robot is unhappy with the pronoun they call him so he corrects them. Yes, even robots on spaceships have fallen prey to American political correctness gone wild.
As with most of today’s US films, kissing is out. The new message of togetherness is touching foreheads together. For the dozens of people who watched the recent film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, it’s the same strange ritual here. It’s like everyone is a soccer player who just scored a goal and wants his buds to press their foreheads to his. It’s not normal human behavior “off the pitch.”
Speaking of a soccer pitch, this film stars some UK actors. So if you ever have trouble understanding UK people when they chatter quickly among themselves you’ll want to wait for streaming subtitles on this one. Or better yet just skip it entirely.
We also have the necessary, purposely homely Asian actress (her first role in a movie) because sexy Asian women are now forbidden to work in Hollywood. It’s sends the wrong message. But having a Chinese actress ticks a box and kowtows to the Chinese Communist Party, a Hollywood favorite. A note to aspiring ugly Asian actresses – jump on this. Hollywood is looking under rocks for homely Asian nobody’s like you.
We also have a woman suffering from morning sickness because she’s pregnant on this ship of horrors. Gee, we’ve never seen that plot twist before in movies.
Paint by numbers.
Another thing that’s beyond old – why are we continually shown in sci-fi movie after sci-fi movie that video screens big and small will all be crappy in the future? Every computer/monitor screen in this movie looks worse than we all had in the 60’s. The lazy writers have never explained why on earth that would ever happen. Probably because it makes zero sense.
If you’ve seen any of the other Alien movies and you’re in the mood to see more of that stuff, Alien: Romulus is the worst of them. So I recommend you rewatch one of the earlier ones to scratch that itch.
– AVOID!
Longlegs (R)
Nicolas Cage is back in another dark movie. With a similar air as Silence of the Lambs, a seemingly clairvoyant female FBI agent tries to piece together clues to catch a serial killer that kills entire families without even being at the home. For some strange reason, in each slaughter the father murders his whole family then kills himself.
It’s plenty creepy and set in the 90’s before cellphones, which always makes scary scenes seem more isolated and somehow more frightening. Nicolas Cage has a pound of prosthesis and make up on his face and still can’t hide the fact that it’s Nicolas Cage playing a crazy guy. Either you like Nicolas Cage as a crazy guy or you don’t. He’s good here (if you’re even remotely a fan).
Some things that might make you hold back your hard earned dollars and wait until streaming…
It stars Maika Monroe. She plays a withdrawn, cold woman that seems on the brink of needing to be institutionalized. Which works for her character. I don’t remember seeing her in anything else so I don’t know if it’s her “tell” or not, but she always breathes as if hyperventilating whenever she’s tense. Including when she should be silent while armed and looking for an evil perpetrator in dark buildings or outside late at night. You’d hear her coming half a mile away. An FBI field agent, no less. It truly ruins the otherwise tense moments.
The tiresome paint by numbers casting continues to show Hollywood carefully adhering to the latest DEI rules. Maika’s black FBI boss of course is a stellar father in a mixed marriage with an angel mixed race daughter. The other prominent FBI agent is an intentionally unattractive female asian woman because Hollywood knows it’s taboo to sexualize asian women onscreen in 2024. We also have an over-the-top, very flamboyant queer guy to make sure that ticked box is in bold, BOLD, BOLD. He runs a psychiatric hospital. He stands out like a sore thumb like he thought he was in a zany comedy.
The DEI formula has been run to death at this point. In the real world we’re not all surrounded by “one of everything.” Especially for the billions of people outside the US. It takes us out of the stories we’re watching. It’s beyond silly and needs to stop.
– Wait for Rental
Detained (NR)
This has to be one of the dumbest movies of 2024.
A woman goes to a bar, picks up a guy and then wakes up in a deteriorating police station and told she has killed someone with her car. I won’t reveal any spoilers in case you stumble upon it late at night in a beach motel and watch it on TV for free years from now. Or stream it for free on Tubi three months from now.
Just know that this story has way too many coincidental steps that have to play out perfectly for a ruse like this to come close to working. Life simply wouldn’t play out like these lazy Hollywood scripts.
The main bad guy always asks one of his henchmen to stay in the room to watch the captive woman, yet she’s handcuffed to an interrogation room table with cameras watching her. Why always have someone in there watching her? Only because the story needs it as a plot crutch. Ridiculous.
For the hundredth time – Stun guns can’t knock people out. You can’t silence someone with a piece of duct tape. In first world countries, you can’t stumble upon millions of dollars in cash and deposit it into a bank so that you can later tap some info into a computer to wire your fortune to someone else. The U.S. shut down such cash-happy activity in 1970 with the Bank Secrecy Act. That’s why the dark, complicated world of “money laundering” exists.
Furthermore, gunshots are incredibly destructible to organs, muscle and bone. And then there’s that pesky issue of severe blood loss. Men and women in this film have the grit of Rambo and somehow keep on moving as if their injuries are merely a sucker-punch. One guy gets shot in both shoulders, then afterward drags himself forward on the floor using his arms. What planet is this? There’s no sign of a red cape peeking out under his clothing. Have the writers ever been bedridden with a simple backache? Humans can’t use their arms after their shoulders have been blown out!
In one scene a woman is stabbed right through her hand. You don’t need to work in an ER to know there’s going to be a great number of stitches needed to close that up! Yet in the next scene (minutes later) her hand is no longer bleeding. Really? I had to glance down at my movie ticket stub to make sure this wasn’t a cartoon.
To add insult to injury (no pun intended) if you were to watch this lazily written story twice you’d see that most of the captive woman’s actions make zero sense once the ending plays out. So the whole thing is really a bust and a waste of our time.
This is a glowing example of a first draft script that was somehow approved and shot on a shoestring budget. You can’t blame the actors. Actors are just happy to be working. But I can’t believe any writer/director would want to attach their names to such a lame project. Even with the absurd surprise ending, it’s still an amateur hour movie.
– AVOID!
Escape (NR)
The South Koreans have shown their prowess in making Hollywood-caliber movies for years and this one is no different. It’s slickly made.
Escape is the fictional story about a North Korean Sergeant serving near the DMZ who has been carefully planning his defection to South Korea for a long time. We see him sneak out of the barracks while everyone is sleeping so that he can scout his path a little further toward the south and finish completing his map. This includes carefully belly-crawling each night to locate more land mines along his way. Once completed, the map should allow him to easily escape all the way into South Korea.
An early wrinkle (as with MANY such films) is that one the soldiers under his command knows what he’s up to and convinces the Sergeant to let him defect with him. We pretty much know this tag-along is going to be a ball and chain in this story. It’s a common plot device to add tension to the escape.
The foe in this tale is a ruthless Major who has entire battalions of North Korean soldiers quaking in their boots whenever he arrives. This idea would certainly be believable in a country ruled by merciless leader Kim Jong Un that everyone also fears. North Korea is a scary place filled with tough authoritarian figures.
But it seems that even the South Korean movie studios have been bitten by the “Inclusive” bug. This story would have us believe that North Korea has a flamboyant queer Major in the North Korean People’s Army who slyly eyes up other “pretty” men soldiers throughout his waking hours. Anyone buying that? I can understand South Korea wanting to throw shade at North Korea, but let’s keep its real.
The movie is full of tension and plenty of action to keep anyone interested. Even with the flurry of English subtitles. The problem with the story is that it’s just too far fetched. It would seem that hundreds of North Korean soldiers can’t hit their targets given minutes of shooting pursuit time with automatic weapons. We see that a lot in movies, but there’s a limit. By the marksmanship shown here the North Koreans would need to employ 50 sharpshooters to pull off a single execution.
Then the story keeps jumping the shark over and over to the point of absurdity. Just when you think it can’t get any harder for this guy to escape from North to South, they throw in another implausible wrinkle. By the time this thing is over you’ve seen more wrinkles than a naked painting of Whistler’s Mother.
Escape is well acted, well shot and exciting. It’s just a shame they felt they had to twist the Believability Knob way past Ridiculous.
– Wait for HBO
Twisters (PG-13)
This is not a follow-up to the 1996 original called Twister, starring Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton. This one stands on its own.
The strength of the story lies in the two main characters (played by Daisy Edgar Jones and Glen Powell) who are better looking than the average person and can both act. That’s why we pay money to go to the movies. For Hollywood to believe the opposite is simply money-losing insanity. There are some half black minority check-boxed actors shoehorned into this Tornado Alley storm chasing story, an American activity as white as skiing, but they are thankfully side characters so it’s a somewhat believable story if you squint now and then.
We follow two main teams of storm chasers that end up competing to get the closest to the tornadoes, both teams collecting data for their own reasons. The tornadoes are realistic looking and you’ll be on the edge of your seat multiple times. It’s theater-worthy stuff.
The story is much deeper than my short description but the less said the more you’ll enjoy it as it plays out. Avoiding any other movie synopsis out there would be my advice.
There is one enormous shortcoming. I know they did it for dramatic effect, but it’s beyond annoying.
Anyone who grew up in the Midwest knows that those residents don’t run around in panic like aliens just landed when the civil defense sirens sound and a tornado is seen in the distance. They’ve practiced tornado drills since they were four-years-old and calmly move to a basement or shelter. If they are somehow caught out in the open they’ll lay down flat in a ditch beside a road where the tornado will literally hop over them if it comes from the side. Tornadoes don’t suck like a vacuum cleaner, they lift things up by blowing air under them. It’s less likely that it can blow air under you if you’re in a ditch. That’s why staying in your car is a really bad idea. Tornados toss vehicles around like toys.
Since the Midwest is generally flat you can see a long way into the distance. So you’re usually prepared as long as you’re not sound asleep in a trailer park. The last thing Midwestern residents do when the tornado sirens blare is run to their vehicles and slam into each other like it’s a Godzilla movie, which they do here. So the movie got the crazy panicked Midwesterners part totally wrong.
That aside, Twisters is a pretty darn good summer movie that we would have labeled a Summer Blockbuster a decade so more ago. Times sure have changed (and thank goodness 3D is finally dead!). But this is a movie you should see in a large theater that features a great sound system.
– See it on the Big Screen
The Bikeriders (R)
Wow, this one is surprisingly good.
The Bikeriders is loosely based on a true story about an early Chicago motorcycle club (pre Hells Angels era) in the late 60’s into the early 70’s. You’ll recognize some big name actors as the movie progresses but rather than name them here, I think it’s a hell of a lot more fun to just see them suddenly enter a scene. The casting and talent is off the charts good. Everyone plays their character to a tee, and there’s a lot of characters.
The dynamic of the Midwestern folks of the late 60’s is captured perfectly and the whole thing is told through the eyes of one of the wives of the bikers. She’s played by British actress Jodie Comer. We’ll likely not see a better performance this year.
In yet another example of British actors able to perfectly mimic American accents, Jodie Comer absolutely nails her Chicago accent in every scene. The Australian actors seem to be able to do the same thing. It always amazes me.
There is no overall goal of the story. No one is trying to save the day. There is no “final bank score” to set everyone up financially for life. It’s simply a story about the rise and fall of this biker gang told in an engrossing two hours.
I loved it, but I fear this one will fall through the cracks.
Shame this movie can’t qualify for any US award nominations due to the modern, sternly-written rules for award qualifications. This movie is a tsunami of white people and no one is queer. Without any of the proper boxes checked, The Bikeriders will be deemed ineligible. But that’s OK. It’s better to make a great movie than to pander to those who are fine with the forced demise of American cinema.
– See it on the Big Screen/Rent it
In a Violent Nature (R)
This independent, low budget Canadian slasher film came out in 2024 and already seems to have a cult following. It wasn’t even filmed in widescreen format, which makes it look like it was shot for the old television days. The acting is something you’d get by hiring actors from your local dinner theater.
This is another movie where kids sit around a campfire telling tales about horrific events from the past in this particular rural area. So in essence we have another “Retarded Killer in the Woods” themed film like so many others before it. The Wrong Turn series of slasher films were probably the latest versions before this. In my opinion all 7 of the Wrong Turn movies were better than this one.
In a Violent Nature spends an inordinate amount of time with the camera simply following the retarded killer as he walks through the woods until he stumbles upon someone to kill. It’s a novel approach to see the world as the killer does throughout the movie and the kills are amazingly gory and well done. Bravo to the special effects team.
But with so much footage following a silent killer simply walking through the woods, it becomes a borefest very quickly. If nothing else this film shows us that there’s a lot of downtime if you’re a retarded killer walking through the woods. I made use of the fast-forward button to scan through what was likely one hour total (broken up by kills) of quiet walking footage through the woods. Thank goodness I didn’t watch this in a theater.
For aficionados who really enjoy watching gory kills onscreen, parts of this one are right up your alley. But you’ll have to wade through a LOT of extra footage to get to those scenes. It’s simply too slow for me to really recommend it.
– AVOID!
Hit Man (R)
Glen Powell stars as a for-hire hitman that’s really working for the new Orleans Police Department to thwart people trying to hire contract killers to kill someone they know. This story is loosely-based on a real guy named Gary Johnson. (They even admit twice in print onscreen that they made a lot of this story up. EVERY true story Hollywood makes a movie about has to be heavily fictionalized. Real life is not entertaining enough for a Hollywood-length film. In real life, people are boring.)
So we see a series of sting operations where Gary wears a wire and gets people to admit they want someone killed as they hand him the payment. He successfully puts a bunch of people behind bars. A lot of it is funny because people who try to hire someone to kill someone for a few thousand dollars are pretty clueless to begin with.
But the real thrill to the story is that Gary is living a double life that few could pull off. He teaches Philosophy at a university during the day, drives an old Honda and lives alone with two cats. So when he gets into character to play a ruthless contract killer it’s quite a contrast to watch. On the one hand we watch as Gary has a soft-spoken conversation with his recent ex-wife over lunch. She’s now heavily pregnant with her new husband’s baby. (Gary just kinda sighs and goes with it. Life sucks like that if you’re Gary.) Then hours later he’s talking to a client about how he plans to dispose of the body of their victim once he gets paid and does the dirty deed.
The second thrill to the story is when he meets up with a pretty female client who wants her husband killed (played by Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona). She’s a great actress and plays her part perfectly. Gary doesn’t believe she really wants her husband dead so he talks her out of the money exchange, which perplexes his police coworkers listening in and puts the “killer for hire” / “girl wanting to hire a killer” on a complex path both legally and morally.
This isn’t an action movie so it’s foundation is based on good acting. Without the proper casting this thing could’ve been a complete disaster. There were times during the movie that I felt I was watching an acting class (Now we’ll show you how to do a diner scene, then we’ll do an office scene.) with the top six actors of the class performing in front of the others to show them how it’s done. I’m not saying this is the best acting I’ve seen in a while, it’s simply that at times it was so well-acted and slickly rehearsed that it didn’t seem like it was really happening. That took me out of the story at times, but I still dug it.
It seems Netflix purchased the rights to the film so it was not released in US theaters. I saw it in a theater overseas and the audience thoroughly enjoyed it.
This is an old-school movie with a script that doesn’t preach any social messages nor does it feature any same-sex kissing scenes. So there goes any chance for an Oscar nomination. In fact there’s actual heterosexual sex scenes going on here (oh my!) which is close to taboo in 2024 American filmmaking. This is where the R rating comes in. It’s a movie that would’ve fit perfectly in the 90s film rotation. Movies that the majority of people in the US and around the world want to see. And I welcome it.
Even though it’s a story about a contract killer there is zero blood or any real physical violence to speak of. The rating comes from no-nudity onscreen sex with heavy duty innuendo.
– See it on the Big Screen/Rent it
What You Wish For (NR)
Every now and then there’s a movie that comes out that needs to be seen quickly before people tell you about it and ruin the surprise reveal. The 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, Psycho and Girl Gone are examples. The Sixth Sense too, (M. Night Shyamalan’s only good story).
What You Wish For is now on that list.
Nick Stahl stars as Ryan, a chef with a gambling problem that forces him to leave the US and hide from the collectors for a bit in Latin America. (The film was shot in Colombia in a mere 28 days. That’s amazing in itself.) Nick Stahl is perfect for this role and he’s surrounded by properly casted actors that nail their scenes.
Once in Colombia he hooks up with Jack, his old roommate from culinary school many years earlier. Jack is doing quite well, living large in an upscale house. The good life. As Ryan takes it all in he’s jealous of Jack’s fortune and lifestyle.
There are layers of complications in this story that continue to stack up leaving you nervously wondering what you would do given the situation and how this thing will resolve. If anyone spills the beans of where this story is headed it’ll ruin the effect of watching it unfold right in front of you.
My only gripe is that toward the end, one of the characters doesn’t really act the way he would in real life, but it’s a small quibble. Overall, it’s quite a tale and a return to the chance-taking scripts that Hollywood has been avoiding over the last few years in order to make stale superhero movies and dozens of prequels/sequels.
There’s also no forced DEI or social warrior nonsense being preached to us, which is mighty refreshing in 2024.
This film went straight to VOD.
– Wait for Rental
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (R)
The short review is that if you liked the original Mad Max film starring Mel Gibson and perhaps one or two of the sequels, this one is right up your alley and definitely theater-worthy.
Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth star in this prequel to the 2016 Mad Max: Fury Road movie that starred Charlize Theron (which was a prequel to the original Mel Gibson movie). They wanted to use Charlize Theron again but her age made it a hard sell. Thus the Anya Taylor-Joy casting as Furiosa this time. Which is made even more interesting since the first hour of the movie stars an even younger version of Furiosa played by Alyla Browne. It’s a 2 hour 30 minute film so there’s plenty of time to cover her younger story in depth.
Unlike most of the recent overly-long movies this one moves at a brisk pace. The story shows us the various dystopian cities each run by their own ruthless Australian ruffians (ruffians like in the original Mad Max movie.) You’ll also notice some intentionally jumpy, sped up action effects that were used in the 1979 original during action scenes. It works for these movies like it wouldn’t in other stories. Mad Max is in its own category. It brings a certain enjoyable smirk to your face when the camera does that. Like it’s an inside joke with these quirky Australian films.
The story keeps you guessing right up to the end and there’s enough adrenaline-infused action to keep even sleepy audiences engaged. The stunt work is insane. And for those who are tired of the “girl boss” or Mary Sue films where the woman is instantly great at everything without any training and is able to beat up trained men double her size, this isn’t that film. Furiosa gets her ass kicked plenty in this story and has to resort to weaponry toward the end to even up the odds against any male combatants.
Dare I say this is the most enjoyable action film since last year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
– See it on the Big Screen
The Last Stop in Yuma County (R)
A group of people find themselves sitting in a diner one by one as they show up to get gas and find out the fuel truck hasn’t arrived yet. Since the gas station is out of gas and there isn’t another gas station for 100 miles, the diner is basically their only spot to wait for the fuel truck to arrive.
Unfortunately, two of the customers stranded at this diner are nervous bank robbers that just robbed a bank hours earlier.
This is another period piece movie that takes place in the 70s based on the model of cars and manually operated car windows.
If you have an appreciation for the diner scene in Pulp Fiction, this movie is for you. It’s basically a 90 minute version of that but not quite up to the Quentin Tarantino standard of writing. But the acting is good and the cast is from the 70s-blueprint of casting.
It’ll sure keep you guessing for the full 90 minutes.
This film went straight to VOD.
– Wait for Rental
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (PG-13)
Those damn dirty apes are back and trying to rule the Earth. But much like the American Indians of the past, the various apes mostly fight rival tribes of apes, or try to avoid the meanest tribes.
This is a 2h 25m movie which turns out to be about an hour too long. The CGI apes are pretty good but at no time will you lose sight of the fact that they’re not real. And that becomes a problem when you come to the realization that you’re sitting there watching computer animated apes do their daily routines. It’s not as exciting as it might have been in the 90’s when we hadn’t seen a lot of computer animation. A little goes a long way when it comes to animated apes.
The thing that made the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie starring Charlton Heston so engaging is that we were watching people who then had to interact with apes. Whether you’re watching people pass on a sidewalk through a café window, watching people at the airport before you board, or drunks in a bar, watching human beings is interesting. That’s why “people-watching” is an actual thing. Animated apes, not so much. Even when they’re sitting around a campfire chatting. After hours of watching apes I didn’t really care about any of them. I cared more about the main human in the story. Because she’s human. It makes you long for more human characters.
The pretty actress (Freya Allan) seems to have Usain Bolt speed and the marathon prowess of a Kenyan, but Hollywood writers live on shortcuts these days. And lord knows we didn’t need the movie to be any longer to accommodate her travels!
I don’t want to go into specifics of the storyline because the only saving grace of the movie is that you don’t know what’s around the corner as you watch. But you’d never watch it twice. Once you’ve seen it there’s no point. That’s not to say you won’t see the ending coming hours ahead. I’m sure the director was hoping people would be surprised. Not a chance, We’re hit over the head with the secret sauce of the ending over and over and over. We’re not all ten-years-old. But how you get to that end is a windy road.
– Wait for Rental
Blood for Dust (R)
Blood for Dust is a drawn out 90’s crime story where we watch as Cliff, a traveling salesman with low moral standards attempts to eke out a living selling anything that comes his way. When we first witness his typical day selling products out of his car he’s literally trying to sell portable defibrillators in various states (like Montana) in his territory. Between sales calls he has to use payphones to keep in touch. One of his friends even has a pager. High tech.
It’s a novel feeling seeing so much payphone use again. Nostalgic. And man were those payphones durable. I’d forgotten how strong the steel-wrapped handset cord was. Hell, you could bash that cradle with the handset in anger after engaging in a bad conversation and the payphone would just shrug it off. And they held money! Those payphones were literally city-proof! They just don’t make things like that anymore.
It’s also nostalgic to see the inside of a seedy 90’s strip club again. What a world the 90’s was. The director sure pulled off that era to a tee.
Cliff has a wife, an extended family and serious money problems. His wife is supportive to a fault and doesn’t really understand just how far under water they are financially.
After watching some pretty depressing scenes of Cliff trying to make enough sales to climb out of his financial black hole, he meets up with an old friend/associate who offers him an opportunity to make some real money. With nowhere else to turn, he decides to give it a try.
Things get ugly quickly as they often do in such situations. It’s a slow burn film in a similar vein to the Cohen brothers movie Blood Simple. If you look at the thumbnail chosen above you’ll see that the shaving mirror reflects a photo on the wall of their son in the background. That’s a nice touch and shows the attention to detail in the cinematography.
As the plan unravels, the sloppy results are pretty implausible. But the pieces fall where they do based on where the story wants it to go. If you were old enough to have a job in the 90s, this movie might be worth a rental as a stroll down memory lane. People too young to remember those days will likely find the story much too slow.
Whenever I see movies like this I always come back to the thought that the best discussion to come out of watching these things is realizing that whoever finds a suitcase/briefcase full of stacks of crisp $100 bills would find it amazingly difficult to find ways to spend it without tipping off the local police or the Feds. The “suitcase full of cash” idea is a delusional movie trope. There’s a reason you can’t buy big ticket items (cars, houses) with cash, and it becomes mighty suspicious when you lay out $100 bills every time you hit the local Denny’s or the grocery store. You-stand-out. Like, a lot. Because literally no one does that. And people talk.
“See that guy over there? He always pays with $100 bills whenever he comes in here.”
“Really? Hmmm.”
That’s exactly why money laundering is a thing. And that’s a whole other nightmare. As big a nightmare as finding a suitcase full of $100 bills.
Blood for Dust is available for streaming.
– Wait for Rental
Arcadian (R)
Ah, another Nicholas Cage movie. Will this one be good or bad? It’s always a roll of the dice with Cage.
The film opens with Paul (Nicholas Cage) nervously pacing in the yard waiting for one of his twin sons to come home on foot before the sun sets. Suddenly we see his son come running over the hill just in time for the three of them to get inside and secure their home.
After sunset, vicious alien monsters rule the night.
Familiar territory for Hollywood to be sure, but the idea is an easy sell. Before I delve any further into the story let’s make one thing clear from the outset. Just when you thought we had it behind us, this movie slips backward and gives us another view of the world through the lens of a handheld shaky cam. And by that I mean ShAkY cAm! It’s as if the DP said to the director, “You think the Jason Bourne movies had cool shaky footage? Hold my beer!”
If you can’t stand such poorly shot films, don’t subject yourself to this movie. I wish I had been warned ahead of time.
However, if you’ve taken a Dramamine (or two) and are still in the game for a Cage film – the cast and acting is solid with no DEI initiatives being crammed down our throats.
If there’s a failing of the plot it’s that we never learn any specifics as to how our planet got to this state of affairs. We do know it’s been long enough that kids have grown from babies to late teens during this time of suffering and that all kids have been homeschooled by their surviving parents (so the kids have very limited knowledge overall).
One of his sons is shown to be bright and curious about everyday things while his brother is mostly just a troublemaker. The young actor playing this pain in the ass character does it well. And in his defense, there’s a girl not too far away over that hill that clouds his judgement in expected ways. Those darn hormones!
The special effect monsters are better than you might expect and it’s not a bad ride overall if you’ve taken your double-dose of motion sickness medication. The ending is pretty unsatisfying, but let’s face it, if we avoided every movie with a weak ending we’d only see two movies a year and nothing from M. Night Shyamalan.
This movie is available for streaming.
– Wait for Rental (If shaky cam doesn’t bother you)
New Life (R)
This is a suspense/drama. The film opens with a bloodied girl on the run, headed to the Canadian border. Over time we learn snippets of what’s going on as she tries to get by without a cell phone or money. Although by the middle of the movie the pieces of the story come together, we never learn why she eats like an animal. Likely just a first-time writer/directer issue. (Better luck next time John Rosman.)
Once the reveal happens at the halfway point you’ll roll your eyes at the plot idea. Then it kind of makes sense a few scenes later, acknowledging your initial disbelief. But then the characters and plot fall completely apart for the last third of the movie. If that’s not enough, the film is over the top preachy about the disease ALS. A lot of scenes about a woman suffering from the onset of the disease.
I didn’t care a lick about the girl on the run nor the older woman with ALS. Neither are likable. Overall the movie is a total misfire.
– AVOID!
The Fall Guy (PG-13)
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt star in a movie about making a sci-fi movie and the unsung hero stuntman/double for the star of the movie that makes the action scenes work. It’s directed by David Leitch who in the past directed Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 so he knows how to make a slick action movie. It’s a little cheesier than I’d like but it fulfills the action and comedy that it advertises up front.
Regardless of the many side characters, I think your enjoyment of the film comes down to whether you’re a fan of Ryan Gosling and/or Emily Blunt or not. They both have the acting chops to make a movie like this work based on the thin premise and some of the dialogue is very clever. Sometimes that dialogue goes on a little too thick, but whatever.
You’re not supposed to know what’s in store for this stuntman as each day unfolds (a lot more than you think going into the theater) so the less said about the wild story the better.
The soundtrack includes songs that will appeal to boomers and the frequent musical nods to the band Kiss are funny. There’s also an effective use of Taylor Swift’s hit All Too Well in a scene that’s both funny and touching at the same time. It’s short scenes like that where actors earn their money.
Not only is there extra footage shown during the credits but there is one after credit scene as well that you should sit through. Probably at home rather than in the theater.
– Wait for Rental
Dusk for a Hitman (R)
This Canadian film (Quebec, thus in French with English subtitles) is “inspired” by true events. In a rare example of “truth in advertising,” there is a notice on the screen at the beginning of this film admitting that most of the story is fictionalized for entertainment purposes. Nice to see moviemakers admitting that for a change.
The true part is that there really was a famous ruthless killer named Donald Lavoie that worked for the Mob in Canada who killed and disposed of a lot of people that his boss wanted vanished. Canadians that were alive in the late 70’s into the early 80’s no doubt remember his name.
We watch as Donald juggles his life with his wife and daughter while taking orders to kill this guy or that guy any time of the day or night (the movie earns its R rating). He also has a loser brother who wants to work in “the trade” but he’s a loose cannon. So Donald has to juggle that crazy ball too.
The director captures the dress code, music, products and vibe of the late 70’s for sure, including the constant smoking. Nearly every scene has someone smoking. Young people today would hardly believe that it was perfectly acceptable to smoke virtually anywhere back then. In office meetings, at the mall, even on a plane!
Unless you’re Canadian, I expect Donald Lavoie’s story is a complete mystery for most people. That makes it more fun to watch. So if this kind of period piece involving the mob and a methodical storyline intrigues you, Dusk for a Hitman marches forward at a steady pace showing you his life. It’s well-acted and lacks any of the DEI requirements that US-made movies now have to abide by. So that’s really refreshing in itself.
– Wait for Rental
Abigail (R)
There’s an old saying, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” That’s basically the lesson of this movie.
The movie opens with a young girl practicing her ballet skills on an empty stage in an empty theater. Meanwhile a group of bad folks (men and women) dressed in black are breaking into a high security mansion.
Next we see the young ballerina driven to the same mansion by her chauffeur. She enters the mansion and heads upstairs to her room where the bad group is hiding. Minutes later they kidnap the young girl and drive her to another old mansion where she will be held for ransom.
The group is told that if they simply manage to hold off any rescue attempt and hold the girl for 24 hours until the ransom is paid they’ll get 7 million each. That’s a ton of money for a babysitting job. To good to be true.
The whole point of the movie is that the little girl is really a vampire. The first 30 minutes of the movie (before she turns) is well done and enjoyable. It then moves into a paint by numbers horror flick but still remains enjoyable for a while. If you’ve seen more than 10 scary movies before, you’ll know who the sole survivor will be within a few minutes of the start of the story. She’s the one that talks tough, knows everything and turns out to be as indestructible as a Schwarzenegger character – but obviously a lot less believable.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We’ve seen female sole survivors in countless scary movies before (including Alien), but in the last 30 minutes the movie turns the unbelievability knob way into the red and you’ll start to roll your eyes at just how durable the heroine is. I suppose audiences are so used to watching Marvel movies that they’ve been brainwashed into believing that lead actors are indestructible at birth.
And that’s a shame because it could have been worthy of a theater visit. Instead, you should wait for streaming. It’ll make a pretty good rental – if bloody vampire stories are your thing.
– Wait for Rental
Civil War (R)
“This is not the movie you are expecting to see.”
You’ve probably seen or heard that line if you have read or listened to any reviews of Civil War. Whether that’s a good thing or not is tricky. I’ll tackle that at the end of the review.
Kirsten Dunst stars as a war correspondent/photographer who has covered conflicts throughout the world. Now she’s covering one in the US. By the time the story really gets moving there are four journalists in the car as they head off to get the “big story.”
The less you know about the four individuals ahead of time the better. The movie drags in places so it’s little things like the assembling of the characters that keeps you engaged. From the outset we know that Texas and California got together to secede from the Union, even creating their own two-star American flag. Because those two red state/blue states were consciously chosen for the story, at no time in this saga do we know who’s fighting for what, if it’s the Democrats or the Republicans in charge of the White House at the time, or any other philosophy that could turn audience members against the movie.
You’ve never seen Kirsten Dunst with a more dour face. No doubt her character has seen some horrific things, but I’m sure most people have watched interviews with real (famous) war correspondents throughout their lives. They don’t turn into dour people. But she sure does. Then there is their use of cameras.
Two of the people in the Press car are photographers. You’d think they would have spent a little time with a professional photographer or two for pointers before shooting this movie so that they didn’t blatantly hold their cameras crooked every time they took a shot. One of the photographers is using an old-school 35mm black-and-white film camera, so there’s no Photoshop to lean on. Photography 101 is holding the camera level. If you’re a photographer, you’ll shake your head as you watch these “professionals” taking crooked photos of the scenes around them. Drove me nuts and I’m not even a pro photographer.
Also, we have yet another example of a doomsday scenario where hundreds of thousands of cars are abandoned on the jammed packed (now deserted) highways but conveniently there’s a path for their car to navigate around all hundred thousand of them to get to their destination. You couldn’t even do that when trying to fast-track a way to get to the beach on a Saturday. It’s another example of why Stephen King’s novel The Stand is such a classic. There were no storyline cheats or shortcuts taken in that doomsday book. Everything was just as hard as it would be in real life.
One big reason to see this film (especially in a theater, perhaps even IMAX) is for the war/combat scenes. The shooting and military hardware usage is downright shocking. On the same level as Saving Private Ryan. If you can handle such scenes of shocking horror, this will be right up your alley. The obvious point is to make Americans understand what the results would be if there’s ever a major conflict on US soil. It’s a solid example of, “War is not pretty,” magnified and up close.
At one point the correspondents are shocked to drive through a calm little town that’s seemly unconcerned with civil war breaking out in “other” States. Perhaps people outside the US would find it odd that life would go on in the other forty-something States if civil war was being fought in a small handful of distant States. But it’s easy as an American, living in a massive country, to isolate yourself from bad news from other parts of the US. We routinely do! I found their surprise that distant areas of the US weren’t hiding under their beds a bit naïve if not silly.
The bottom line for Civil War is that regardless of your political views you can sit through this movie right next to someone from a different political camp with the knowledge that neither of you will be rubbed the wrong way that the script is taking sides. Which for some is a letdown. They’re looking to get riled up. But for most folks, I would hope it’s a relief. There is no winner if the US chooses civil war. If you don’t believe that, you should sit through this movie. You don’t want these scenes playing out in your State for real.
I’m not recommending this movie because I think it’s a great story. It’s NOT a great movie. I think it’ll be forgotten in 10 months. However, if you find the subject interesting and think you want to see the film, the military scenes are theater-worthy and will have way more impact on you in a dedicated theater.
– See it on the Big Screen
The First Omen (R)
This is the prequel to the 1976 original movie starring Gregory Peck and actress Lee Remick. The overall theme of this new story makes sense and leads right up to the original movie opening. It’s the execution of the story that sucks. In a word, it’s a snoozefest.
Like most female-directed movies, director Arkasha Stevenson doesn’t seem to understand the concept of film pacing. Boy can she drag out every scene to excruciating levels of boredom. This story features women chatting, chatting, chatting. Nuns speaking quietly with children, and nuns chatting with each other, and women chatting quietly with friends, at length. Then we get an occasional jump scare that you’ll see coming a mile away.
Followed by more women casually chatting away about this and that. Sometimes we get a nun chatting with a man or two, but not often. But good god does everyone love to quietly chat. Endless scenes of people conversing about this and that as we eavesdrop with heavy eyelids waiting ever so patiently for something scary to happen.
We get a few scenes of women shrieking at the top of their lungs toward the camera. That’s not scary, it’s annoying. In real life you’d simply leave the room.
There are some scenes of gore (after all it’s supposed to be an R rated horror film). But it’s mostly childbirth gore. The kind of gore seen in every labor room in the world 24/7. We get it – the director wants to remind us that women painfully bear children and that it’s never pretty. But that’s not a horror movie. Am I in the right theater? Where are the scares?
I’m pretty sure I could quickly re-edit this two-hour turkey into a tight 60 minutes in one afternoon and not lose any important story elements.
The big reveal at the end makes no sense because we are all very familiar with our bodies. You’ll understand what I mean if you’re one of the unfortunate souls to sit through this terrible movie.
I saw the original in the theater in 1976 and consider myself an Omen fan, thus the theater visit. I should have known better than to fall for it.
– AVOID!
Dune 2 (PG-13)
For those of us that didn’t read the Dune novels, it’s still a confusing mess of who’s who and what’s going on as you watch these films. Thankfully, even more so than the first one, Part 2 has enough action to keep you interested anyway, even with the 2h 45m runtime.
I chose the thumbnail above because it irks me that they had to put nasal devices onto good looking actors and actresses for the big screen adaptation of the original story. They aren’t for breathing on the planet Arrakis. Instead they are used to collect the precious water vapor from their lungs as they exhale because the planet is soooo arid they have to save/recycle every trace of liquid. Even their tears (sometimes).
Regardless, those hoses on their faces are distracting and let’s be frank, gross. It’s also inconsistent (as with Part 1) with people wearing them sometimes but not all the time. In some scenes only half the characters onscreen are wearing them when outdoors. Are they needed or not?
The biggest special effect is the appearance of sandworms. There are lots of sandworm scenes with a booming soundtrack behind them. The special effects are outstanding but if you’re an adult, a lot of the usage of the sandworms by the protagonists is beyond silly. Since the novel made judicious use of the sandworms I suppose the director was stuck with it “as written.”
There’s no point in trying to describe the movie any further. If you read the books, you’ll be anticipating every chapter of the story you already know. If you didn’t read the books, most of it won’t make much sense anyway. You’re just there for the thrill of a dense, crazy story.
Because of the visuals and orchestration, it’s true that this film really needs to be seen in an IMAX theater.
– See it on the Big Screen
Cold Meat (NR)
A guy traveling through town stops at a diner during a snowstorm to find a near empty restaurant with a waitress offering him a piece of their world famous cherry pie. He’d rather have a steak but the cook just took off because of the approaching storm. Then her abusive ex-husband drives into the parking lot and things get tense when he enters the diner. Until the traveler, sitting calmly in his chair intervenes using psychologist-like prose to calm down the assailant. As the ex-husband leaves he kicks the sideview mirror off the traveler’s car.
Everyone relaxes and she’s grateful for his non-violent interaction.
When the traveler leaves the diner to drive off into the snowstorm we’re pretty sure the boyfriend is still going to be drunk and looking for trouble. That’s where the story really begins.
That’s all I can reveal about the storyline without totally giving the story away. There is a surprise or two ahead. But the plot holes, lengthy dialogue and horror movie tropes are enough to run this thing right off the icy road.
In case you see it on TV for free next year, here are some gripes that don’t give away the plot but are deflating for such a story.
At one point a character reveals that they were raised in an orphanage. The film is set in modern times so there’s no way any character/actor in this film grew up in an orphanage. Orphanages are hell on Earth. In the US (and other Western First World countries) they were all shut down before these actors were born, replaced by foster home services.
The tactic used here to knock someone out is a trope we saw in lots of TV shows in the 70s and 80s. Without going into specifics, it doesn’t work like that.
Why in the world did the tow truck driver do what he did? It makes no sense. And how did he do it with his bare hand?
If you paid more than 25¢ for this movie, by the halfway point you’ll know you made a mistake. For free? Maybe.
If it was rated it would be PG-13.
– AVOID!
The Promised Land (R)
This one is a period piece, which many moviegoers loathe (oftentimes myself included). But this European film is skillfully and effectively delivered in a way that Hollywood simply can’t pull off anymore. While Hollywood is distracted and can’t shoot straight there are many foreign competitors that are delivering the goods. The reviews have been overwhelmingly great so I gave it a chance.
Here we’re in 18th century Denmark and a captain recently retired from the army decides he wants to prove that he can tame a huge piece of land that is plagued with thieves, murderers and soil that can’t sustain crops. Many before him have tried to cultivate the area in the name of the King but all have failed.
If he’s the first to succeed he’ll be set for life with a royal homestead of his own with other settlers following to live on this expansive land.
Unfortunately this land area has a neighbor, a sadistic nobleman named Frederik De Schinkel who spends his time in his castle, raping the maids and generally treating everyone around him like a dirty dog. The last thing he wants is anyone bringing more settlers to his area to water down his title and fortunes.
All of the actors are solid. The two-hour runtime documents the pursuit to grow crops on the sterile land with help from various area misfits along with the many clashes with the crazy madman noblemen next door. There’s enough action and characters coming and going to keep the view interested.
As with many such films, this one is “loosely” based on what is thought to be a true story. Although the producers admit they took many liberties.
In Danish with English subtitles.
– Wait for Rental
Bring Him to Me (R)
Sometimes we get a movie that harkens back to the days of gritty crime dramas where male criminals down on their luck did their dirty work simply to get paid for the score. And there were always lots of threads connecting all the players in the network. Each member of the illicit food chain had a pretty good idea who they could trust. But the roles could change on a dime. Like those movies from the 80’s and 90’s, this one lacks the nonstop action of today’s films that have dozens of cars flipping over and explosions aplenty, instead spending time telling an actual story with down to earth action scenes along the way.
I chose the thumbnail above carefully. Reading any commercial synopsis beforehand could give too much away, so avoid that if possible before renting this film. It’s a planned robbery/who can you trust movie. That’s it.
We see the initial robbery take place in short, sequential segments throughout the film as pieces of the puzzle are delivered over the full 1h 36m runtime. It’s effective and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Throughout the film we have no idea where this is headed.
Australian actress Rachel Griffiths does a pretty convincing Boston accent. It never ceases to amaze me how Australians and UK actors can nail various American accents. Sam Neill is the only recognizable actor here.
One quibble that had me shaking my head – You don’t sit around at a fresh murder scene and chitchat for 20 extra minutes when you could be discovered any second. C’mon man. But that aside, it’s an enjoyable underworld crime drama for those that enjoy such things.
This film went right to streaming.
– Wait for Rental
The Challenge (PG-13)
We’ve all heard the rumors about Tom Cruise wanting to film a movie in space aboard the ISS. He loves to do crazy things for his movies. Unfortunately for Tom, Russia beat him to it. The first theatrical release has now hit theaters with a Russian actress being the first to star in a movie on the International Space Station. And it’s a good one!
The movie starts with two cosmonauts working (space walking) outside the ISS. They are told by their mission control that a satellite has been struck and debris is headed their way in a few minutes. If this scene sounds like a direct copy of the Hollywood film Gravity you’d be right. But it’s still a tense scene. The resulting ISS maneuver to quickly ascend to a higher altitude ends up breaking the ribs of one cosmonaut holding on for dear life outside the station and puncturing one of his lungs.
So, for the first time in history (in this fictitious story) we have someone on the ISS who is in dire need of surgical assistance. In his current condition he wouldn’t survive reentry to Earth. So the Russians scramble to find a list of willing surgeons that they can train to see which one is fit enough to go up to the ISS to attempt the surgery in zero gravity.
We watch as a handful of Russian men surgeons and one woman surgeon are sent to the space center for training. This isn’t a Mary Sue story where the woman is stronger and smarter than all the men and thus gets selected to save the day. It’s a lot more nuanced than that, and well-written. When it comes to equality, one should note that the Russians sent the first woman into space in 1963. It would be 20 years later before America would send a woman into space.
Once the actress gets into a real rocket and arrives at the ISS, the film really shines. We’ve all seen footage of the cramped insides of the ISS, but seeing an actress try to navigate it is crazy interesting and fits the role as she is playing a surgeon that would really be navigating the claustrophobic area while weightless for the first time. The film really puts you aboard that ISS and it quickly reveals just how fake looking all the US films (like Gravity) really were. It’s hard to recreate the real effect of “flying” weightlessly through those modules using wires etc. They quickly illustrate the fact that there is no up or down in space. If you get motion sickness easily, these scenes may force you to close your eyes for a bit. Especially on a monster movie theater screen. It’s impressive as hell.
One thing to note is that the US modules of the ISS have a lot more room than the Russian modules. It makes the story even more claustrophobic and insane using the Russian spaces for the film.
Once on the ISS we basically have one actress and three non-actor cosmonauts who are doing their best for their roles. It works. It all seems plausible except for one glaring error that I almost hate to disclose because most people would never notice it.
The most important person in any major surgery is the anesthesiologist. They spend a minimum of 13 years of medical school learning the art of putting people “under” without killing them. It’s an insanely difficult job. The patient is on the razor’s edge of death the entire time. One little mistake and you lose the patient or give them permanent brain damage. Even a surgeon would admit that the anesthesiologist is the most important person in the operating room.
So here we have a surgeon in space putting a patient under by herself without an anesthesiologist on board, like there’s nothing to it. Any medical professional would tell you that’s ludicrous.
Some real life things that stand out: It seems Russia has zero laws against smoking – anywhere. They even smoke freely in the space center during a launch and in offices/meetings. And drinking! Russians love their hard liquor at all hours of the day. Even when working at the space center during a mission. Keep in mind this is a Russian film. 100%. They are showing us the truth of life over there.
There are a couple other scenes where you will be reminded of Sandra Bullock in her scenes in Gravity, but again, it’s OK. Russia is showing the world that they have the ability to go toe to toe with Hollywood. And they’re right. Another example for those that have Netflix is the Russian series called, Better Than Us (16 episodes). Wow, is that a series that would make Hollywood envious.
To get the green-light to spend the money and take the time to film a movie with a Russian actress on the ISS, the Russians had to sell this idea to Moscow as a recruiting film. The Russian space effort has hit hard times with dwindling funds and a population that has generally lost interest in anything space related. The thought was that this movie could rejuvenate young Russians into believing in the dream of space travel.
That’s likely the reason one of the actors has dialogue where he laments to the female surgeon that humans have only traveled a mere 250 miles up in space. He finds that most disappointing. Interesting that he would choose the altitude of the ISS as the total distance traveled by humans when Americans went to the Moon six different times. But the Russians don’t want to remind their population of that “American only” feat.
The only space parts with the actress that were faked with special effects are the scenes where she spacewalks. Obviously this is not something you would do without extensive training and it’s easy to see that those scenes were done back on Earth. It’s also obvious when there are millions of stars shown in the background that it’s not being filmed for real.
As anyone who is familiar with cameras knows, when the Sun is out, or the foreground is bright (looking at the space station in the sunlight) you (or a camera) can’t see dim stars in the distance. Space would look jet black around you. The only time you can see distant stars is when the blazing Sun is setting behind Earth and the only lights shining are the distant pinholes of stars, with your pupils as big as marbles and the camera F-stop set wide open to capture as much light as possible. It’s the same reason we didn’t see stars in the “sky” when the astronauts were walking around in glaring daytime on the Moon.
Not only is this the first time a movie has ever been filmed in space, but it’s also a solid Russian story that’s well worth watching in a theater if you can find it playing near you. Supposedly it will open in America in April. I guess that depends on the political climate and whether Hollywood wants to block it from US theaters. It’s already being shown in theaters all over Asia.
The film may be dubbed in English or have English subtitles depending on the version. There are also two different cuts of the film. One is 2 hours, the other is 2 hours 44 minutes. My review is based on the 2 hour version. The 2 hour 44 minute version supposedly spends a lot more time on the backstory of the female surgeon and her family. Whether or not that makes the story even better, I don’t know.
– See it on the Big Screen
American Star (R)
Ian McShane (the owner of the New York Continental Hotel in the John Wick films) stars as a professional hitman sent to the Canary Islands for a job. As he waits for the details of the hit, he hangs out with a younger woman bartender on the island. That’s all you should really know going in for the best viewing experience.
The set up is slow and meticulous, much like the movies of the 70s and 80s. A lot of interesting camera shots and use of various lenses to capture the beauty of the Canary Islands.
The movie gets its title from the real, famous ship that ran aground as it was being towed to Thailand and became marooned on the Canary Islands in 1994. Since it disintegrated and mostly fell into the sea in 2007 they used special effects in this movie to show the ship upright and in its true form when it was a tourist attraction, stuck on the beach for a decade.
There’s a little black boy shoehorned into this story for no reason other than to check “the box.” Lucky him. He doesn’t contribute to the story in any way so you can fast forward through his dull scenes and it won’t affect anything.
This is no action movie, but the acting is solid throughout. This film is suitable for people who consider themselves “people watchers” and those who appreciate scenic destinations.
This one went straight to VOD.
– Wait for Rental
The Beekeeper (R)
Jason Statham stars as a super secret US government operative (retired) who’s so secret few even know about his kind. For whatever reason he’s been “taken care of” by an elderly black woman (we never find out what that’s all about) so he stays on her farm and is a simple beekeeper most of the time.
Then some hacker criminals take advantage of her using a powerful phishing attack that lures her into calling their call center where they manage to convince her to give up her master password, leading to all of her money being stolen from a slew of her various accounts within seconds (Hollywood, LOL). She also loses over two million dollars that she had collected for a charity, because I suppose that account had the same password too?
Anyway, she’s so distraught about falling for the ruse that she shoots herself in the head. If she really did use the same password for all ten accounts then I get it why she took it so hard.
The beekeeper (Statham) discovers her dead body at the same time the old woman’s daughter finds him in the home. She’s also an FBI agent (the odds!). A body positive, smug, black FBI agent who likes to wear a sweatshirt and ripped up jeans every day when working as an FBI agent. I thought the FBI had a dress code but perhaps the minorities do whatever they want in that organization. Who knows anymore.
The beekeeper wants to hunt down these hacker-fiend call centers and put an end to that business. The script is exactly what you’d expect in today’s Hollywood movies, but even with the forced P.C. nonsense, Jason Statham nails this role. There are a ton of action scenes and he’s about as good (believable) as it gets. When he shows up to “burn a place to the ground” and it’s a large glass and steel building, he means it. The action is so well done that not even the heavy-handed dose of political correctness can stop the fun. And that’s saying something.
– See it on the Big Screen
Mayhem! (R)
A bad guy (Nassim Lyes, a French Algerian-born actor) gets paroled from a Paris prison then accidentally kills a bad guy so he flees France to live in Thailand. There he engages in more illegal activity and things spiral out of control with him taking out waves of bad guys like John Wick.
This is a French film and much of it is in French (with clear English subtitles). It also depends heavily on the viewer not knowing anything about Thailand.
Just as with many other movies, like Midnight Express for example, the protagonist here is a criminal who continues to do criminalistic activities instead of just working hard like the rest of us. His continued bad judgement just brings death to his family and friends. All his fault. Hard to root for a bad guy like that.
Missing from the movie is any sign of cell phone use. So I assume they want you to think it’s the early 90s. But there’s one scene that shows modern day cars, so there goes that idea.
How’s this guy working as a driver for a ritzy Thai hotel chain (Dusit) and baggage handler at the airport in a country where only Thais are allowed to do such work? A foreigner can’t even cook fries at a McDonald’s! He’d be turned in to immigration within days and brought in for hard questioning and heavily fined at the very least. Even more preposterous when he’s a fugitive on the run who fled Paris (magically) right after serving time.
We are lead to believe he and his wife are having a financial hardship that prevents them from buying some land for her to open up a bigger, better bar on the beach. What’s odd is that they never attempt to get a bank loan, which is a very common thing to do in Thailand when you want a car, home or business loan, just as it is in any other country. Instead he immediately takes a drug delivery shortcut with a seedy outfit to help the land deal happen. Predictably, things don’t go well.
It’s an hour into the 1hr 35min movie before he starts taking revenge on the “bad folks,” most of whom, unlike him, haven’t killed anyone before and aren’t really as bad as he is. Admittedly, some of those fight scenes are well done, but it’s a ridiculous movie.
Then we have more child trafficking nonsense (which turns out to be a totally false narrative, even within this movie).
After a drawn-out fight, how far can you travel on a motorcycle with an untreated compound fracture to your arm with obvious bone sticking out? Probably not very far. But to this guy, no worries.
In the end, he’s reunited with his Thai daughter (she’s not really his but he likes to pretend she is) who was taken by a real relative who wanted to shield her from a loser bad guy like him. Just like in real life. Unlike the constant (lucrative) media hype, very few children are actually taken by strangers. Children are overwhelmingly taken by relatives or people they know. He finds this out only after he kills or maims dozens of bouncer/security Thai men and women, and having his house burned down with all his papers and passport in it. Anyone who thinks that’s a happy ending doesn’t know how the world works.
Without a passport he wouldn’t be able to rent a hotel room or apartment in Thailand. He couldn’t get medical treatment either. He’d need that immediately! Nor could he earn any money much less have any kind of life. If you’re not a Thai person in Thailand, you have to have a passport to reveal who the hell you are. No flights out without a passport either. No way he could get a new passport from the French Embassy because France would have him extradited and imprisoned again as soon as they found out where his fugitive ass was.
Add to this that both the Thai underworld and Thai police would be hunting this guy down relentlessly and reality really starts to set in. To make matters worse, his dark African skin doesn’t allow him to blend in in any way shape or form.
It’s a ridiculous story on all fronts. The guy is dumb and doomed, as is the Thai title girl because the Thai relative that was protecting her from him has a bullet in the head now too. What an unmitigated disaster of a script.
– AVOID!
End of 2024 Movies.